


Plotting, Pain and Panta

by Lilianawinchester



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Background DICE (Dangan Ronpa), Gay Oma Kokichi, Gokuhara Gonta is too pure for this world, Good Friend Momota Kaito, Iruma Miu & Oma Kokichi Friendship, Iruma Miu Being Iruma Miu, Iruma Miu's Dirty Mouth, Multi, Oblivious Gokuhara Gonta, Oma Kokichi Being Oma Kokichi, Oma Kokichi Is a Little Shit, Oma Kokichi Is a Mess, Oma Kokichi Lies, Oma Kokichi Needs a Hug, Oma Kokichi making plans, POV Oma Kokichi, Pure Gokuhara Gonta, Sad Oma Kokichi, Someone give these children a hug, Supportive Akamatsu Kaede, Sweet Gokuhara Gonta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 55,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilianawinchester/pseuds/Lilianawinchester
Summary: Kokichi stares up at the night sky through the caged dome, running his hand along the perfectly smoothed wall. Whoever put them in here is twisted. Twisted and evil and vicious. Someone that would try to force them all to bend to their will. Someone who thinks they can get away with trying to twist his arm. And that's why he's going to take them down. He's going to tear down this game piece by piece.Even if he has to do it all by himself.~~~The entire of the DRV3 game but through Kokichi's perspective.Spoilers for the entire game (obviously)
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Saihara Shuichi, Amami Rantaro & Oma Kokichi, Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko, Gokuhara Gonta & Oma Kokichi, Harukawa Maki & Momota Kaito & Saihara Shuichi, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito, Iruma Miu & Oma Kokichi, Iruma Miu/K1-B0, Momota Kaito & Oma Kokichi, Oma Kokichi & Tojo Kirumi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 16
Kudos: 53





	1. Robots and Morons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi Ouma wakes up in a overgrown school with no idea how he got there or what is happening.

The first thing he feels is warm air brushing against the back of his neck. Warm air and the sound of a slight breeze rustling through foliage. Next, he feels a cold hard surface pressed against his cheek. Slowly, he attempts to open his eyes only to be greeted by blinding light that forces him to scrunch his eyes closed once again.

“Excuse me? Excuse me…are you okay?” A calm voice calls out to him cautiously, but he simply waves his hand in the general direction of the voice.

“Five more minutes…” He grumbles and tries to squeeze his eyes closed even tighter to little avail.

As uncomfortable and the tough surface is under his cheek, the cool feeling is a relief from the warm and humid air surrounding him. If it weren’t for that fact that he was seemingly sitting down with an uncomfortable ache running down his back, he’d be more than happy to just stay here forever. But of course, that was never going to happen. Not with this lingering presence pestering him.

“Uhhh…I don’t know if that is the best thing to do in this situation…” He can hear slight shuffling, but the voice doesn’t get any further away. It stays there, just hover around him like a bad odour. “I think you should get up now…” A tough, almost metallic hand reaches out to him and shakes him gently, disturbing him even further.

“Ugh, fine fine! I’ll get up.” He grumbles and finally forces his eyes open.

Slowly, the blinding light dies down and he’s greeted by a mosaic of grey and green across his vision. Although they’re enclosed within four walls, huge green vines and other varying forms of foliage have creeped their way into the room to break up the dull grey of the room. Not to mention a strange red barbed wire has been strung over all the windows.

Other than the foliage, the only other things in the room are school desks, a suspiciously futuristic blackboard and a huge monitor covered in speakers that both look completely out of place compared to the run down, almost apocalyptic looking classroom surrounding them. The black board almost seems more like an electronic screen with an almost ethereal green light.

Where the hell was he? He tries to remember what he’d been doing before waking up here but everything is a complete blur. He can’t even figure out what the last thing he remembers happening was. All his recent memories are just kind of…hazy… and he doesn’t like it one bit. Like it's all been covered in a thick fog, just out of reach. 

The empty, uncertain feeling gnaws at him, but he forces himself to smile with his usual mischievous gleam. After all, it’s not like he’s alone here. Not when the strange boy that had woken him up is standing right beside him.

As he examines the boy, he notices that his hand is covered in what seems to be a kind of metal glove. No, not a glove, the metal covers the boy’s whole body, cutting off at his neck to leave his head and face exposed still. Despite the clunkiness, it looks oddly futuristic. Sure, Kokichi might dress weird by most people’s standards but this guy was a whole new level.

It’s not just his clothes, his entire appearance is odd. The more Kokichi looks at his eyes, the less and less human they become. At a first glance they just look like normal blue eyes, but they look almost mechanical, with strange patterns in the iris’ that definitely aren’t human. Then there is his incredibly spiky pure white hair, topped with an oddly sharp ahoge and his incredibly smooth but pale skin.

“Who are you?” Kokichi cocks his head to one side and slowly steps out from his desk, casually putting distance between the two of them. Was this guy the one who put him here? Judging by the way he’s shifting his weight from one foot to another, he doubts it. He doesn’t have the conviction or the confidence to have planned all of this out. He doesn’t have the eyes of a liar.

“Me? I’m K1-B0, although I’d prefer it if you called me Keebo.” The strange boy clears his throat and stands up as straight as he can, an innocent smile plastered on his face.

“Woah! Are you a robot?! An actual real-life robot!” His eyes light up with glee and he skips right over to Keebo, trying to get a closer look. Almost at once Keebo backs away, almost tripping over his own feet as he does. “What? You scared?” Kokichi smirks playfully. If he’s being honest, he’d have expected a robot to be a little more assertive that this, but this guy almost seems flustered and scared.

The guy might not look like much, but he must be impressive if he can do things like get flustered. Kokichi can only imagine how much work must have gone into trying to make him this way. As cool as robots might look, they’re not quite as fun if they’re completely unfeeling and emotionless. If he can feel actual emotions, he might not be so boring.

“I’m not scared, I’m just being wary considering the situation we’re in.” He clears his throat with a slight tinge of red on his otherwise pale cheeks. He can blush too…interesting…

“Oh realllllly? What situation are we in?” He feigns innocence.

“Well –” Keebo starts to speak but is cut off as the door of the room is pulled open.

“Uh, excuse me?” A tall boy with wavy green hair steps into the room with an air of coolness that instantly puts Kokichi on guard. He doesn’t appear particularly dangerous but there’s much more certainty to his step than Keebo. A dark conviction. 

“Who are you and what do you want?” Keebo stiffens up and stays rooted on the spot as the strange new boy enters into the room.

There's something about his calm, casual demeanour that instantly puts him off. You'd never be able to tell that they'd been locked up here if you saw the green haired boy. Now _he's_ someone who could be behind this. Every inch of his eyes glimmer with lies. 

“Hey, sorry I didn’t mean to freak you out.” The boy holds his hands up, a calm and casual smile playing on his lips. “I just wanted to see who was here, I’ve been going around and finding everyone else here.” Although he’s smiling cheerily his eyes are just like Kokichi’s. What isn’t he saying…what is he trying to hide?

“Everyone? Are there other people here then?” Kokichi asks cheerfully.

“Yeah, apparently sixteen of us in total. Haven’t those weird bears spoken to you yet?” The boy steps even further into the room and closes the door behind him.

Weird bears? What is he talking about? Curiously, he turns his head to the side to see Keebo’s response, but the robot seems to be in exactly the same boat as him. So they didn’t come while Kokichi was asleep then?

“Rise and shine Ursine!” The sudden enthusiastic singing completely stuns them both. They just stand there frozen as five small robotic bears appear from seemingly nowhere, each with a half white, half coloured scheme.

“Did ya call for us?” The small white and red bear with a scarf and shuriken’s sings cheerfully as if this is completely normal and not one of the weirdest things he’s experienced in his life.

“Ohhhh, Keebo are these your little buddies.” He coos earning a frustrated glare from the humanoid robot in question.

“Just because I am a robot doesn’t mean I know every other robot!”

“Robot?” The green haired boy’s frown is promptly cut off by the strange robot bears.

“What did youse want with us?” The stripy yellow and white bear steps up this time, cutting off all other trains of thought.

“What are you?” Keebo frowns, shuffling slightly back from the robotic bears.

“We haven’t introduced ourselves yet?” The pink bear asks in an annoyingly high-pitched voice. As she speaks, all the bears look at one another with a look Kokichi can’t quite decipher.

“No, you most certainly have not.” Keebo speaks up, yet again.

“Well then,” The bears all speak in unison, instantly reminding Kokichi of their robotic and mechanical natures, “We are the Monokubs!” They say it as if that holds some kind of meaning. As if the name alone should jog Keebo and Kokichi’s memories.

One by one they all introduce themselves with their strange matching names. It's like something out of a manga or comic. Just a little too far from the reality he knows.

For a second he tries to recall if he’s ever heard of the Monokubs, but nothing rings a bell. Hell, he hadn’t even heard that Keebo had been made although he’d assume that would have definitely been newsworthy. Then again, he was pretty busy with his own life to keep up to date with the news all the time.

“Where are we?” He cuts of the ‘Monokubs’ theatrical little introduction, looking around the classroom once again.

“Where are you? You’re in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, of course!” Montaro announces as if they should somehow already know that.

“Ultimate…”

“Yeah, there are a total of sixteen of you ultimate cretins in the school, right now!” He can’t tell if the pink bear is supposed to be threatening because if so, it is failing miserably.

“Sixteen of us? But why are we here?” Keebo frowns and rests his hand on his chin. Kokichi can’t help but watch curiously as Keebo’s face manages to scrunch up thoughtfully. 

“Let’s just say, you bastards are going to be doing a little activity together later!” Monokid yells loud enough to make Kokichi cover his ears. Does that bear have chest hair? Who gives a tiny robot bear chest hair?

"Activity?" What activity would be worth the effort of gathering them all here? Nowadays Ultimates basically never meet, staying scattered around the country doing their own things. If they’ve really gone to all the trouble of gathering 16 Ultimates from all across the country, then it must have taken a lot more resources than he’d first thought. Who would go to all that trouble just to gather Ultimates and why?

“So long, bearwell.” The Monokubs sing once again and disappear before either him or Keebo can ask any more questions.

Of course they didn't answer him. Why would they ever do that? 

The cogs in his brain jump into action. He tries to keep track of everything that has happened. Making mental notes of everything the Monokubs told them - which really isn't anything. 

The entire encounter only leaves him feeling more frustrated and confused. Although part of him has always been curious and eager to gather information, he hates it when it leaves him feeling like this. Were those dumb robot bears designed to be as unhelpful as possible because that’s certainly how he’s starting to feel.

“They like to appear and disappear like that; you’ll just have to get used to it.” The green haired boy speaks casually, waving the bears off as if they’re completely normal. It seems like he’s been awake for a lot longer than Kokichi has but how much longer? In fact, how long was Keebo awake for before he woke up Kokichi? A sudden feeling of paranoia washes over him. Did everyone here get a head start over him?

“If everyone here is an Ultimate, what about you two?” Keebo turns to him and the green haired boy.

“Um, well…I’m not too sure?” The green haired boy speaks first, scratching the back of his head with a kind of pseudo-calmness.

“You’re not too sure?” Kokichi asks playfully. That sounds like a lie if ever he’s heard one.

“I’ve spoken to a few of the others and they all said they didn’t remember how they got here which lines up with my experience. The only difference is that I actually don’t remember my Ultimate talent either.” The boy chuckles lightly although it almost sounds more like he’s doing it to convince himself than them.

“You’ve forgotten your Ultimate? Is that even possible?” Kokichi frowns. He calls bullshit. Nuhuh. No way. 

“Yeah, it seems so. I can only hope that I’ll remember it soon or I’ll be the odd one out.” Just one look at his face and it’s clear there’s something he’s not telling them. There’s no mistaking it. Is he completely lying or is he just hiding something from them…?

“Nee-heehee…you better hope so.”

“What about you then?” The boy asks coolly.

“I’m Kokichi Ouma and I’m the ultimate supreme leader!” He puffs out his chest a lets a mischievous smile play on his lips.

However, as soon as he says it, the strange hazy feeling he was having earlier returns in full force. The hazy distorts and blurs his memories of his own talent slightly. Although he remembers that he’s the ultimate supreme leader, all the details are just slightly out of focus. He remembers pulling pranks and causing mayhem through the city but can’t recall a single face or name. He can remember how he’d feel, running free through the darkened streets, but can’t remember a single interaction with anyone else in the group.

Is this like whatever is happening to the other boy? How are they even able to do this to them and their memories? With everything he learns the bigger he realises this operation must be. 

“Ultimate supreme leader?” Keebo arches one eyebrow and sighs.

“Yupppp.”

“How are you the ultimate Supreme leader?” He shakes his head, still not believing a word that comes out of Kokichi’s mouth.

“Well, I run a super-secret evil organisation that rules the world from behind the scenes.” He stays cheerful and playful as he watches the other boy’s reaction. 

This is always the best part. The disbelief and distrust at the title. The strange array of different responses. 

“Really now?” The green haired boy hums thoughtfully. Much to his surprise, he doesn’t seem to have ruled the option out.

“Who knows? After all, I’m a liar.” He grins manically. 

“You’re a liar?” Keebo doesn’t even sound surprised. If anything he sounds...disappointed. “What kind of ultimate are you?”

“I already told you, I’m the ultimate supreme leader.” With that he earns a heavy sigh from Keebo, who instantly looks away with a clenched jaw.

“Anyway…I’m sorry, but you never did tell us your name?” Keebo completely ignore Kokichi and turns to the other green haired boy.

“Oh yeah…I suppose I didn’t…well, the name’s Rantaro. Rantaro Amami.” Kokichi takes a mental note of the name, making sure not to forget it. There’s definitely something else about this guy, he just can’t quite put his finger on it. He supposes that’ll just make it all much more interesting at least.

“It’s nice to meet you, Rantaro.” Keebo smiles innocently, with more emotion than Kokichi had really expected to see. More emotion than a robot should have.

“You too, I should get going though. There are other people I want to meet before those Monokubs start popping up again.” What other people does he want to see, and why?

“Ah okay, do you want us to come with you?” Keebo asks politely.

“I think I’m going to see people on my own for now, but I’ll see you both again later.” Although he’s talking to Keebo, Rantaro’s eyes seem unsettlingly fixed on Kokichi. It’s almost like he’s trying to see through him…well two can play at that game.

Before either of them can say anything else, Rantaro has turned and left the classroom, sliding the door closed behind him. He’s totally not suspicious at all… There’s no doubt they’ll meet again later though, at least there’s no doubt in Rantaro’s mind.

“He seems…nice.” Keebo clears his throat, watching the closed classroom door. “Are all the Ultimates like that? He didn’t seem so bad.” Did Keebo really not think he was suspicious at all? Maybe it wasn’t as obvious as Kokichi thought it was…or maybe it’s hard for robots to properly read people.

“So, if you’re the ultimate robot do you have super cool functions like giant blaster guns?” Kokichi changes the topic gleefully, trying to distract himself from the strangeness of Rantaro.

“I don’t have anything like that. Just because I’m a robot doesn’t mean I need blasters.” Keebo seems to grit his teeth, gripping onto his own metallic arm.

“Really? That’s really boring. Shouldn’t robots have cool features like blasters?” He’d kind of expected something interesting like blasters or even just a jet pack. Otherwise, how would he be the ultimate robot? Sure, he can mimic humans to an almost unsettling degree but it’s clear he isn’t the only advanced robot in the world. If technology is advanced enough to make things like the Monokubs and Keebo, what specifically makes Keebo the ultimate?

“That’s robophobic! I don’t like all that Sci-Fi technology anyway!” Robophobic? Really? He has to hold back his own laughter.

“Whaaaat? Really? What is your point then?” He hums, resting his head on his hand casually.

"I am a learning AI; I don’t need sci-fi things.” Keebo holds his ground, although it’s not like he gives a particularly strong reason for his existence. I mean, if he was making a robot there’s no way he would skip out on all the cool gadgets.

“Ohhh, can I look at your body! There must be something cool about you! You can’t be all boring.” He skips closer to Keebo, trying to get a better look at him. The closer Kokichi gets, the further Keebo moves back.

“W-What are you trying to do!” Keebo stutters, almost falling over himself in his hurry to move away. It almost looks like he’s starting to sweat but that can’t be true, right? Who would make a robot that could blush and sweat but has none of the cool sci-fi robot functions? Someone got their priorities wrong.

“Heeey! Wait for meee!” He tries to catch up with Keebo, jogging after him to try to get a better look at the machinery.

“Please stop! Don’t come any closer!” Keebo tries to ward him off with little success.

As they run around the room, the classroom door slides open again and not one but two people step in. There’s a blonde girl dressed up in a pink vest and skirt with musical hair clips and a boy dressed in black with a cap covering most of his face.

“C’mon wait up a little! Lemme touch your body a little. I’ve always wanted to be friends with a robot.” He completely ignores the two newcomers, still pestering Keebo as much as possible.

“What?! A robot?” The girls voice cuts through the room, interrupting him and Keebo’s little chase. At once the attention seems to be off of Koichi as he locks onto the girl, ready to fend off any potential ‘robophobic’ attacks.

“What is it? Are you another robophobe? I have a recording function. If you make any robophobic remarks, I will see you in court.” A recording function? He supposes he shouldn’t really be surprised but almost everything seems too sci-fi for the robot.

“Wait…you’re a robot? Are you, for reals, a robot?!” The girl shouts out again, her eyes sparkling just like Kokichi’s had been. She's going to be just as disappointed as he is soon enough... 

While the girl is stepping forward with lots of energy and enthusiasm, the boy she entered with is still partially hidden behind her, keeping to himself. His head is still looking down which, along with the cap, makes it really hard to see his face or his eyes.

“A-Are you one of the Monokubs?” He finally speaks up, stepping to one side so he’s out of the girls shadow.

“Do not compare me to those toys!” Part of Kokichi wants to laugh but he hold himself back from it. “I am not just any old robot! I am K1-B0, the Ultimate Robot. But please, address me as Keebo.” Keebo speaks with a voice filled with pride despite his lacklustre abilities.

“Ultimate Robot?” The girl frowns, probably thinking the same kind of thing as Kokichi. It’s not exactly a typical ultimate ability. Sure, he might not be typical either, but being a robot was like a step further. At least, in his mind. 

“That’s not faaair! You can’t be the only one who gets to show off! I’ll introduce myself too!” He pouts over dramatically, drawing both the girl and the boys gaze for the first time.

“Oh, um…go ahead.” The girl shuffles from one foot to the other, looking over to her companion for support.

“I’m Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader!” He grins, just waiting for their responses.

While the girl seems to frown uncertainly, put on edge by his admission, the boy is watching him cautiously as if trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle. Under that cap, his eyes are only just barely visible. He'd be lying if he said it wasn't peaking his interest a little. 

“By the way, I learned the hard way that a robot’s breath smell like gasoline.” He cuts off both of their chains of thought, completely changing the topic of conversation in a second.

“My breath does not smell like gasoline! I am powered by electricity!” Keebo shouts out indignantly with a surprising amount of passion. It seems what he lacks in interesting functions he makes up for with how easy he is to wind up. It’s almost too easy.

“Nee-heehee…I’m just kidding.”

“You’re not funny.” Keebo rolls his eyes.

“Of course, you don’t think I’m funny. Robots can’t understand human humour to begin with!” He laughs loudly.

“D-Don’t mock me! I have studied the complete human history of stand-up comedy!” It’s almost sad to hear. Almost but not quite. “Plus, I may have the appearance of a robot but I am a high school student just like you.”

“You’re a high school student?” The dark-haired boy sounds just as curious as Kokichi as he approaches Keebo. Wouldn’t it be unfair to allow a robot with access to the internet into a school with test situations? Or did he not get that function either? 

“I was created by Professor Idabashi, the leading authority in the field of robotics… He installed in me a strong AI capable of learning and maturing like a human brain. That’s why at the time of my creation I didn’t know anything. I was like a baby… But the professor raised me like I was his own child. He taught me so many things…until finally, he enrolled me in high school. And now I stand before you all! See? I’m just like everyone else!” It feels like a pretty stereotypical story if he’s being honest. Well, stereotypical but with all the cool robot parts cut out.

“Hey, do robots have dicks?” The thought suddenly drifts into his mind. Although he’s been assuming Keebo is a boy, is he really? And it sounds like Idabashi was just trying to make a robotic version of a normal person so at this point he wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

“Please do not ask such ridiculous questions!” The robots face lights up a pale pink as he tries to put more distance between him and Kokichi.

“Nee-heehee… I only asked because you backstory is pretty flaccid for a robot.” He chuckles but no one else seems particularly amused… Boring… Hopefully someone in this school actually has a sense of humour or it’s going to be superrrrr boring here.

“Hey, Kokichi? I don’t really understand your ultimate supreme leader talent…” The girl rounds on him, apparently having come to terms with Keebo’s existence. Well, that was quick. 

“Oh, I’m just the supreme leader of an evil secret organisation. That’s all.” He smirks, lowering his voice menacingly. Sure, it might not be exactly true, but he’s allowed to have his own fun. Although he can think of a couple of different cops that would be more than happy to call D.I.C.E an evil organisation.

“What?”

“I gotta say, it’s pretty impressive. My organisation has over 10,000 members!”

“Seriously? The supreme leader of an evil secret organisa-” She almost sounds like she buys into the concept, maybe she’d even more naïve then he’d originally thought she was. The boy, on the other hand, is still watching him cautiously. It’s impossible to tell if he’s buying into it or not, his face is completely hidden.

“Who knows? Because I am a liar, after all.” He smiles gleefully as he cuts through her words.

“Huh? So you were lying just now?” Instantly her expression shifts into one of disappointment. He can practically see her head shaking disapprovingly.

“Well, I am the supreme leader of an evil secret organisation. That part was true!”

“So…were you lying or not?” Her eyes narrow and she shuffles ever so slightly backwards.

“Nee-heehee… I’m not telling youuuu.” He sings playfully. He might as well keep them on their toes. It’s not like he’s going to be trying to get chummy with any of these people, not when he’s just randomly appeared here without any explanation. The Monokubs might be taking responsibility for that but someone must be running them. Any of the sixteen people here could be plotting against them.

“Ah, by the way…what was the name of that organisation?” The boy asks calmly, his eyes narrowed at Kokichi. Somehow, he sounds more confident than he had earlier on.

“It’s a secret! Y’know, cuz it’s a secret organisation.” He maintains his cheerful expression, letting his eyes meet the other boys for the first time. As soon as their eyes meet the boy stiffens completely and his eyes immediately avert to look at the floor.

“But I’ve never heard of such a large secret organisation like that…” He sighs and rubs his chin with one hand thoughtfully.

“Of course, you haven’t. Because it’s a secret organisation.” What about that isn't he getting? This one might be a little slow on the uptake here... 

“Hey… Everything he’s said so far has sounded like a lie, so that’s gotta be a lie too, right?” The girl turns to her companion, turning her back on Kokichi in the process.

“Just leave him alone. Everything he has been saying has been a lie.” Keebo backs her up all of a sudden, his robotic brow furrowing in an oddly natural and non-mechanical way, with something resembling sweat clinging to his forehead. “…He’s a far more suspicious person than I am, that’s for sure.”

“Well, of course you’re not a suspicious person, because robots aren’t people, silly.” Unsurprisingly, the comment seems to wind up the robot. No matter what he says and how he acts, he is still a robot that has been programmed. Without knowing the intention behind Keebo, its hard to say he isn’t at all suspicious. Programming could be used to create an innocent façade that could fool Kokichi’s lie detecting ability.

“Grgh…!”

“Oh, you mad? Are you gonna hit me with a rocket punch?” He grins, letting his eyes twinkle enthusiastically. Maybe he’ll finally show off some kind of cool function!

“I don’t have the function!”

“Aw maaan, you’re boring.” He’s not exactly surprised but it’s still a let-down. If he ever gets out of here, he’s going to have to talk some sense into this Idabashi guy.

“Well, I’m Kaede Akamatsu and I’m the Ultimate Pianist.” Kaede attempts to distract Keebo from Kokichi’s taunts, putting on a sickeningly jovial face.

After a few seconds of silence, her elbow not-so-subtly nudges the boy beside her but even still he doesn’t say anything. His hand is still resting on his chin and his eyes are still fixed on the floor. What on earth is he thinking about? 

“And this is Shuichi, he’s the Ultimate Detective.” She clears her throat and speaks for him, lightly clapping him on the upside of the head to try and get his attention.

The reveal perks Kokichi up a little. He's always had a thing for detectives and law enforcement. Say whatever you want, there's an appeal there. Even if he's a little quiet and withdrawn he could still be fun. 

“Oh, uh…yeah…” Shuichi rubs his injured neck, a slight blush creeping up on his cheeks. Awww, is the detective sweet on his little piano friend? He’s _totally_ not going to use that against him at any point…

“We’re going to leave to try and find everyone else.” Kaede steps up, seemingly addressing Keebo more than him. Her too? Everyone seems to want to find all the other Ultimates…

“Yeah, me too.” Keebo says proudly, “You two stay safe.”

“Thanks, same to you two.” Kaede waves and grabs a hold of Shuichi’s arm, dragging him out of the room with her.

“Awww, Keeboy you want to go exploring with me. I’m honoured, truly.”

“I think I’m going to look on my own.” He’s not at all surprised at the response. Personally, he is much more comfortable exploring this place on his own than he would be with any of the random strangers that seem to be lurking around in the building.

“That cuts deep.” He sniffles dramatically, letting his eyes flood with tears.

“I’m sure you’ll live.” He speaks through gritted teeth. “Just stay safe out there…” For a second there, Keebo’s voice actually softens slightly catching Kokichi off guard. Even so, he wastes no time leaving the classroom – and Kokichi – behind.

“Forever alone…” He sighs deeply, even though nothing but silence is there to listen to him.

With Keebo gone, he walks straight over to the windows to get a better look at the barbed wire. It’s not woven tightly enough over the windows to prevent anyone from smashing their way through it. An even if it was, they’d be able to pull it off of the windows if they tried hard enough. It's a half arsed attempt at best. 

Curiously, he pulls the wire down a little to try and get a better look through the dirty and cracked window. Despite his best efforts, it’s harder than it seems to get close enough to the window to see anything. Curse his small height! Stowing away his pride, he walks over to the desks and drags over the chair so he can stand on it. Keebo better not walk in the room right now…

Now he’s closer he can brush some of the foliage off of the glass but unfortunately there’s not much to see. They must be on the first floor right now as he can see the field outside the building stretching out as far as the eye can see. The only things he can see other than the grass is a few paths and what seems to be a building of some kind. Unfortunately, there are too many vines on the outside of the window to get a better look.

Sighing, he steps off of the chair and drags it back to the desk. For now, he should probably find out if there is a different way out of the building before he just starts smashing windows at random. After all, with so few precautions stopping them leaving the building, he wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a completely unlocked door out somewhere. In fact, with all this plant life here, there might even be damaged walls he can use to get out.

When he finally steps out of the classroom, he’s not at all surprised to see more dull grey walls, floors and ceilings stretching out. However, his attention is instantly pulled to the stairs going into the basement that are on his left.

He has no idea who the designer of the school is (was?) but he’d like to have a word with them. Someone decided to paint the entire stairwell bright pink with white spots in complete contrast to the other grey walls. Sure, he might like flashy and dramatic fashion, but this is just an eyesore…

Without much thought, he turned his back on the stairs and started walking up the corridor only to see another matching set of stairs – this time going up to the next floor – at the end of the corridor. However, instead of being drawn to the stairs, he’s more drawn to the strange cage like structure in the middle of the corridor.

Keeping an eye on his surroundings, he approaches the barred off area. As soon as he gets closer, he immediately notices the large door being protected by the cage. Without much hesitation, he finds the doorway into the barred off area although the door is locked tightly. At this point its almost surprising to see. 

_Good thing he's prepared for this situation…_ He reaches into the concealed pocket in his shirt to pull out his lockpick. As he crouches down to the lock, he half expects those weird bears to show up but even when he puts the pick inside the lock they are nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, they stay far away. He doesn’t think he has the energy to deal with them right now.

When the door finally clicks open with ease, he is almost taken aback by how easy it all is. After all the time he spent breaking into buildings, it’s almost a let down to find this lock so easy. Call him crazy, but he enjoys a challenge. This whole building is way too easy to break out of. The more and more he learns the easier it seems. It’s almost as if their captors want him to get his hopes up…

Keeping his guard up, he pushes open the barred door. Loud, grating screeches from the door scream down the corridor demanding everyone’s attention. If those bears weren’t lying about there being 16 students here, people are going to show any second now.

By the time he reaches the large entrance doors, he’s surprised to find the door completely unlocked. He doesn’t even need to put much pressure on the door for it to swing open with ease, allowing bright light to flood into the room.

Once again, he screws his eyes up and buries his face in the crook of his arm. It takes a few seconds for the light to finally die down and for him to risk peering out into the world beyond.

The very first thing he notices is the dense foliage carpet surrounding the surprisingly well-kept pathways. Just beyond that, he can see an equally well kept, modern looking building. And then…

“A cage?” His breath hitches as he looks at the gigantic structure completely surrounding him.

It reaches all the way around the school grounds and up into the heavens. He can hardly even see the top of the cage as streaming sunlight in the pale blue sky blinds his eyes. From every angle the bars of the cage envelope his view. A constant reminder of the situation. Near the base of the cage he notices the thick cage bars are replaced by a huge dark band without any visible gaps. Is it some kind of wall?

“Rise and Shine Ursine!” The sudden singing almost makes him jump back. So now they rear their annoying heads.

“I see you’ve found the end wall!” Monophanie announces cheerfully, her voice brimming with unearned pride.

“The end wall?” He frowns. So, the structure is a wall then? If bars stretched down to the ground it wouldn’t exactly be a challenge to escape – although so far nothing has really been a challenge in that regard. Then again, what is the point in making it difficult to escape the building when there is this cage surrounding them?

“The wall that separates us from the end of everything!” Monokid shouts out dramatically, to the point where Kokichi can’t tell if he’s even being serious. How can a wall that is made up of exposed bars at the top be separating us from the end of 'everything'?

“Are we supposed to be telling him this?” Monotaro turns to his…colleges? Siblings…? At this point there is no way to really know.

“Well, we’ve told him now.” Monosuke huffs although it doesn’t seem like the others are really listening to him.

“So, what’s beyond the wall?” He narrows his eyes, trying to read their behaviour.

“Beyond the wall? Who knows?” The pink bear hums unconvincingly, not quite meeting Kokichi’s eyes.

Before he can even start to ask another question, all of them vanish, singing their stupid catchphrase as they disappear. What was the point of that interaction? It seems like they only appear to say unnecessary things.

“Whatever, I guess I’ll just have to find out myself.” He mutters to himself and begins heading down the pathway towards the base of the cage.

As he walks along the path, he takes note of all the buildings in the area. Although the dormitory looks incredibly new and modern, he’s not at all surprised to see the building he’d just come from is completely the opposite. The vines and leaves are just as prevalent on the outside as he’d expected although the construction work present on the upper floors catches him off guard. Are they still working on renovating it then?

Those aren’t the only buildings though. The further he travels down the path the more buildings he can spot, although they seem blocked off by thick foliage or large chunks of rubble. He’ll just have to check them out some other time though.

Even stranger than the other buildings though is the cage shaped building down a set of stairs. It instantly reminds him of the cage they’re in right now although the bright red door to the building immediately jumps out to him.

However, instead of walking up to the door, he walks around the fence lining the pathway and moves through the grass towards the wall. The further he travels; the more trees surround him. With every step he takes, they get denser and denser, trapping him in the midst. All light coming from the bright sun above them is quickly smothered.

Straining his neck, he can see what seem to be skyscrapers and other tall buildings through the gap in the bars. Are they in a city? The scenery brings back some nostalgic memories. If only this wall wasn’t in his way…

Now he’s close to the wall the sheer size weighs down on him. The dark shadow it casts envelops him, towering over him and above the tree line.

Cautiously, he places his hand on the smooth surface of the wall, feeling the impossibly flawless and cold surface. There aren’t any lumps or cracks which he might be able to use to climb up the surface. If he tried, he’d probably just fall on his arse like an idiot.

So, without making any progress or learning anything helpful, he turns around and returns to the path again. So much for all that.

This time he sticks to the path as he heads back up the stairs towards the building he’d woken up in, only to be greeted by a student stood at the edge of the path. He’s just grinning like an idiot like nothing strange is happening in the slightest. He has to admit – his coat is pretty cool though.

“Hey! You must be another of the Ultimates!” The goatee boy jumps forward towards Kokichi eagerly. His purple coat, which is only half on, flutters with the movement exposing the galaxy pattern inside.

“Yup.”

“I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars.” He says with a voice filled with pomp and grandeur.

“Luminary of the stars…?” He cocks his head to one side. Is that supposed to be impressive? It's not like he can really talk though.

“I’m the ultimate astronaut!” He stands up straight and tall, keeping his head high.

“Oh, really…?” He mumbles, a smile coming to his face. He didn’t realise you were even allowed to be an astronaut at their age.

“What about you?” Kaito raises an eyebrow curiously.

“Me? Well, I am Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader.” He mimics Kaito’s tone perfectly. He even mimics the taller boy’s posture.

“ _Really_?” Just like the others, he narrows his eyes and crosses his arms. An astronaut might not be anywhere near as weird as a supreme leader but it’s not an everyday title either.

“Yuppppp. Why would I lie to you?” He looks up at Kaito with wide puppy dog eyes. Although, despite how naïve he seemed, he doesn’t seem to buy into it for a second. Maybe he underestimated him.

“What does ‘ultimate supreme leader’ even mean?” He mutters disdainfully.

“It just means that I’m the supreme leader of the evil secret organisation of 10,000 people.” He brags loudly, shrugging his shoulders with a bright smile on his face.

“You’re a teenager.”

“So are you. Aren’t you supposed to have a degree to be an astronauttttttt?” He drawls and cocks his head to one side. It’s not like he knows the in’s and out’s of becoming an astronaut but he’s fairly sure he heard that before. Then again, he does have that weird goatee, maybe he’s a not a teenager like the rest of the people he’s met so far. No one said they’re all teenagers, right?

“I had someone forge documents to let me take the exam.” Is he bragging? “But I did so well in the exam that they let me in anyway.”

“An unreformed criminal!” He gasps, slapping both cheeks loudly. Maybe he’ll actually get along with this guy…

“Says the super villain.”

“I prefer the term dictator, if you don’t mind.” He hums cheerfully.

“Well, _dictator_ , have you figured out why we’re here yet?” He drawls sarcastically. Yeah, maybe they could genuinely get along.

“Nuh-uh.” He pauses for a second, drawing out the moment as long as possible. “Besides, why would I tell you?” He speaks quietly, dropping his voice to a sinister hiss.

“Because we’re all trapped in here together! We’re all going to need to work together. Teamwork is the most important thing in our situation.” He growls impatiently. Kokichi can practically see the vein popping out of his forehead.

“Well, we’re pretty much trapped in this place. There’s no point trying to escape, we might as well resign ourselves to living here.” He slings his arms behind his head calmly.

He feels bad for anyone who could actually lie down and accept things like that. After all, who knows why they’re actually here. It’s easy to forget how dangerous this situation is since everything is so…lax here.

“No matter what anyone says, I’m going to find a way out of this place! No way is that wall going to stop me!” Kaito yells at him passionately. _No matter what anyone says_ …? The confidence in his voice is almost depressing. If only it was that easy.

“I already checked the wall and it’s impossible climb.”

“Impossible is just a word people use.” Kaito grins as if he’s just made some kind of point. Is this guy really that dumb? And it seems he was wrong about getting along with him…that didn’t last long.

“Sure, it is. You keep telling yourself that.” He lets his voice drip with sarcasm, although he can’t tell if Kaito even picks up on it.

Before letting the astronaut respond, he walks right past him and towards the edge of the path. Yet again, the fence is hardly doing anything to stop them from just walking over. They’re almost as useless as the weird junk that is strewn on the paths – seemingly in an attempt to stop them continuing down the pathway. 

“Where are you going?” Kaito frowns as Kokichi vaults over the fence to make his way towards the cut off section of the path.

“To explore, duhhhh.” He rolls his eyes over dramatically. Nothing has stopped them from exploring so far. Why would he just stand around here.

“We –”

At once a loud bell rings through the area from speakers propped up somewhere nearby. Both of them instantly fall silent as they get ready for whatever is going to come next. Are they telling him off for straying from the path or something? 

“Thanks for bearing with us.” The squeaky annoying voice of Monophanie quickly proceeds the bell. Sighing, he listens to the seemingly unending rubbish the bears are spouting from somewhere unseen. 

“An opening ceremony, huh…?” Kaito mumbles to himself once the broadcast has ended. His nose is scrunched up and his eyebrows narrowed. If he wasn’t such an idiot he might actually look kind of threatening right now.

“Those bear want us all to gather together then…” Despite the part of him that knows this is almost certainly a bad idea, he can’t supress the desire to see what is happening. To find out what these robots want.

“We better go then.” Kaito says firmly, not giving Kokichi any wiggle room to argue.

“Do you not have any free thought of your own. Just because they ask us to, doesn’t mean we should.” He sighs as deeply and loudly as he can, facepalming for extra effect.

“I do have free thought, but how are we supposed to destroy these bears without going and confronting them.”

“You’re going to destroy them…” This time he actually genuinely does feel like face palming. Does he not realise they’re robots and likely have tons of replacements around the place?

“Of course! After all, didn’t you say the wall was out of the question for now.” He looks so proud of himself Kokichi almost feels bad for him. On second thought, he feels worse for the guy’s poor family.

“Of course, why not go and get yourself killed for no good reason. Sounds like a fantastic plan to me!” He grins enthusiastically, “So then – where is the gym?”

“You haven’t been to the gym yet?” He frowns like Kokichi is the idiot here. He won’t lie, that feels like a personal attack.

“Nuhuh, I was busy doing evil super villain things.” He looks at his nails casually, puffing himself up as much as possible.

“Sure…” Kaito drawls, “Well the gym’s location is on the Monopad.”

“The what?” How are all these people finding this information he isn’t? It’s really starting to piss him off. The Monokubs never brought that when they were talking to him before. He never heard anything about it from Keebo or the other people he saw either.

“The Monopads. Those weird devices everyone got given. It has a map and everyone’s profiles downloaded onto it.” He pulls out a strange electronic device from his pocket and shows it to Kokichi.

Without any hesitation, he thrusts his hand into both his pockets only to feel the cold exterior of a pad in his own pocket. He’d grown so accustomed to the weight of it he didn’t even notice it there. How had he managed to overlook that when Kaito found his own. Today really isn’t his day…

Just like Kaito said, he finds a strange looking display with a white background and pale purple splotches – along with his own face in the corner. Well, that’s not at all strange…not in the slightest. Sure enough, all the different options Kaito had mentioned are there. Despite his intrigue into the other students, the first thing he does is open up the map to try and figure out where they are.

It doesn’t take him long to get his bearings and find the route from outside the building to the Gym the announcement had mentioned. He doesn’t even wait to talk to Kaito, instead just heading off to the gym with the monopod still open and in hand.

“Hey, wait up.” Kaito grumbles and runs to catch up with him. For the second time in the day he finds himself cursing his short legs.

If he actually tried he could easily slip away from the astronaut but since they’re both heading to the same place it wouldn’t really achieve anything. Besides, he’s better and outrunning someone when he’s got the ability to hide and obstacles to use to his advantage compared to just running through this pretty open pathway. It’s always better to keeps his cards close to his chest anyway – after all, who knows what they’re doing here.

As the two of them walk Kaito stays surprisingly quiet, letting Kokichi flicker through the files of all the other students locked here. It’s an even split between boys and girls with a pretty diverse range of talents. Every profile comes with a picture of the students although he’s not sure when they got this picture of him. He doesn’t remember ever posing for a picture like that…does that have something to do with his hazy memories and Rantaro’s apparent lack of important memories?

Rantaro’s is the first profile he looks at but it also states his talent as unknown. Was Kokichi wrong about him lying or hiding something? Or is whoever is running this working with Rantaro to keep his secret. Honestly the rest of the file is pretty useless, listing a rather odd set of likes and dislikes and pretty useless measurements that he’ll forget as soon as he moves onto the next profile.

All of the other profiles are pretty much the same, although he makes a mental note of each of the student’s names and talents as he flicks through. His eyes stop as he reaches the detective boys profile – Shuichi… He’s another interesting one to keep tabs on. Maybe he can eventually talk to the boy when his meat shield isn’t around for him to hide behind…

He keeps on flicking until he sees Keebo’s picture. A picture with a clear photo of him with a sci-fi looking blaster. So, he isn’t all boring then! Had he just been lying about not having a blaster? He hadn’t seemed like he was lying.

“Did you meet everyone already?” He turns to Kaito and nods to the profile list.

“Sure, didn’t you?”

“I already told you, I was busy with my evil plots.”

“Sure, you were.”

“Did anyone seem strange?” He asks hesitantly. It’s unlikely that Kaito would have any useful information – after all, he can’t be sure that Kaito is even trustworthy. Even so, it’s something to pass the time as they walk.

“Not really. Everyone was pretty confused about how we got here but it’ll be fine. We just need to come up with a plan to take down these arseholes.” He says with completely confidence. Despite the situation they’re in, he can’t help but admire the sentiment. Of course, he’s a complete idiot to think that’ll work, but he supposes it’s still admirable. Though the sixteen of them are Ultimates, there’s not much they can do against an operation like this. Not with an ill-thought-out plan like ‘teaming up and taking them down’.

“Good luck with that.” He says jovially, plastering on a huge fake smile as they approach the door of the gym. As soon as they get near they can hear voices chattering away in the room. Did everyone else get here before them? In fairness, they were pretty far away while most of the students were probably already inside the building.

With no hesitation, Kaito opens the gym doors and steps into the room with everyone. Nine of the students are already milling around as they walk in but not everyone is there. Some people must still be making their way over then…he hums to himself.

He looks across at the sea of faces and tries to recall all their names and talents as best he can. A few people seem to have already paired off together to talk while others are just standing around on their own. He even notices Keebo getting groped by a girl in pink with steam punk looking goggles he vaguely remembers being called Miu. The robot quickly looks away as he spots Keebo entering the room as he keeps trying to fend of Miu’s advances.

_Well, at least someone likes the guy…_

“Do you know what we’re doing here.” A soft, almost motherly voice calls out from behind him, making him flinch for a second.

As he turns around, he finds himself looking at a tall, silver haired – or is it green? – woman dressed in a gothic dress. Despite her heels, he hadn’t even heard her approaching. It’s like she’d just materialised behind him. Kirumi Toujo…the Ultimate Maid… Now that’s a scary talent…

“Nah, not yet.” Kaito scratches the back of his neck as he wanders further into the gym to allow Kirumi to enter.

“Hmmm, this is quite troublesome.” She mutters to herself, keeping her cool and calm demeanour up.

“Hey.” Rantaro casually strolls over to them, calling them further into the gym. “Did any of you find anything?” He arches one eyebrow and looks between the three of them.

“Nothing of interest. I spent a while examining the dormitories that they intend for us to stay in but there was nothing that could help us there.” Kirumi explains as she rubs her chin with a gloved hand.

“I tried to get a better look at the ‘end wall’ around the perimeter but there’s no way to climb it. It’s too smooth and too high above the trees for them to be of any use…” The only thing he can think of left to try is to make some kind of grappling hook or rope to attach onto the bars for them to climb up. That’ll take a bit more time to sort out though…

“I see…that is troublesome.” Kirumi finally drops her hand to her side but her eyebrow’s don’t relax in the slightest.

“No one else managed to find anything either… It doesn’t seem very hopeful.” Rantaro explains, gesturing to the hall of people behind him.

“Now now, I’m sure we can still have some fun here, Nee-hee-hee.” He smirks with as menacing a voice as he can muster.

“Yahoo!” A perky looking girl pokes her head around the doorway, her pigtails swinging energetically back and forth. At her side is probably the largest person Kokichi has ever seen with long bushy brown hair and a suit – minus a pair of shoes. “Whatchoo all talking about?” She sings with an unnatural level of joy considering everything happening right now.

“We’re trying to figure out what to do. Do you have any ideas?” Kaito asks her hopefully as if this ditzy girl is going to know.

“We must all pray to Atua!” She says with absolute and unwavering conviction. Although her playful and cheerful attitude doesn’t drop for a second, there’s an underlying seriousness he hadn’t quite been expecting.

“Atua?” Kirumi tilts her head to one side.

“The god of my island is called Atua and if we all pray to Atua he will protect us and keep us safe. Atua will be the one to save us all.” Her eyes flicker with something he can’t quite put his finger on. An underlying madness amongst the cheer.

“Angie says Atua take care of everyone! He get us out of big cage.” The larger boy – Gonta – announces with a much more serious tone than Angie.

Then, without waiting for the rest of them, Angie skips over to the rest of the group. Rantaro gives them all a look that Kokichi can’t quite read before following after her, with the rest close behind him.

He doesn’t even bother listening into the other conversations as they get closer. At this point, he’s given up on getting more information from any of them. Instead, he tries to run through everything he’s learnt so far – although that isn’t really much. None of it makes any sense in the slightest. It’s a puzzle that’s missing a few too many pieces right now.

Since he isn’t listening to the others talking, he immediately notices the entrance of the final two – Kaede and Shuichi who he’d met earlier. Just like before, Shuichi seems to be hiding in Kaede’s shadow as they step over the threshold.

“All sixteen of us have gathered...” Kirumi points out immediately, drawing everyone back together. She nods her head politely as the two approach the rest of the group.

“Hmm, it’s pretty spectacular seeing all sixteen of us Ultimates gathered together.” Kaito chuffs, his eyes flickering over the crowd of people in the room.

Kokichi can’t help but wonder what people he surrounded himself with in D.I.C.E. Were they as much personality as all the Ultimates gathered here. Even without those distinct memories, he can’t imagine a world where he didn’t make sure he was always surrounded by interesting, unique people. There’s nothing worse than a boring person…

“Kehehe… You may not be able to be so easy going for much longer…” Korekiyo hisses with a soft voice Kokichi hadn’t been expecting. Strangely, despite the sinister undertones, it’s quite a captivating voice. Perfect for a storyteller he supposes…

“In this situation, it’s no use thinking about things. So eventually, Tsumugi stopped thinking.” Tsumugi – who apparently speaks in third person? – hums quietly. There’s a glazed over, vacant look in her eyes as she stares at a point in the distance as she speaks.

“Nyeeeh, what’s going to happen to us? I bet it’ll be a pain.” As Himiko speaks, she pulls her witch hat down over her eyes until her entire face is hidden from view.

Kokichi doesn’t remember the little magician’s height from her profile, he has a feeling she’s actually shorter than him – a feeling he hasn’t had in a long time. He has to supress the overwhelming urge to walk over and pat her head.

While he’s thinking about people shorter than him… His eyes san the faces and people around him until he spots the ex-tennis pro buried in their ranks. Ryoma Hoshi – one of the few people he’d actually heard about before coming to this school. A fellow criminal – although his crimes were a lot less fun. Though Kokichi might be proud of the years worth of work he’s put into pestering and pranking the law enforcement across the country, it’s only fun while it’s harmless. Of course, he never really learnt why Ryoma did what he did, but it still doesn’t sit quite right with him. Not even if it was mafia members he murdered.

“Hmmmm…” Tenko – who has been stood beside her, pestering her, the entire time he’s been in the gym – hums as she tries to move even closer to her small companion.

“What? What are you looking at?”

“Um… Himiko, you can use amazing powers, right? Cuz you’re a psychic and stuff, right?” He can’t tell if the Aikido master actually genuinely believes that stuff or if she’s just playing into Himiko’s gimmick since it’s pretty clear she has a thing for the red head.

“I’m not a psychic…I’m a mage.” A scowl is just about visible underneath the brim of the hat.

“Whoooa! That’s amazing! I definitely want to incorporate that into Neo Aikido. Hey what sort of training did you undergo to get your powers.” Tenko hops closer to Himiko which only causes the girl to curl into herself more.

“Talking about it is too tiring.”

“You’re pretty lazy.” Kaede cuts into the conversation abruptly, although he can’t tell if she even realised she spoke. Despite her well-meaning (kind of naïve) nature, she seems more blunt than he’d first given her credit. She could still prove to be fun yet.

“Pardon me, but…we need to be on our guard. We do not know if and when danger will strike.” Keebo clears his throat – do robots need to clear their throats? – and stands to attention like always. Someone really needs to help him take that stick out of his arse and as usual, Kokichi is more than happy to take one for the team. Call it his life mission.

“D-Don’t say that…I’m so scared…I don’t know what to do…” Kokichi pulls out all the stops as he feels his eyes welling up with tears. He looks over at the stiff robot with his vision quickly blurring into a mosaic of colours and indistinct wobbling shapes. 

“There is no need to worry. Atua will protect us.” Angie reaches over and lightly places a warm and soothing hand on his back. At once she flashes him her blinding, ever present smile as if that is supposed to somehow help the situation they’re now in.

“Phew! That’s a relief!” Kokichi instantly blinks away the tears as if they’d never even been there. Despite how obviously fake the entire thing is, it seems to please Angie as she takes her hand off of his back and skips away back over to Gonta.

“Is your brain full of weeds or somethin’? I’ll whack ‘em outta that skull of yours!” Miu storms forward, more aggressively than he’d been expecting. Immediately Kokichi prepares to dodge whatever she’s going to try to do to him, but before she can even get close enough to touch him, she’s stopped in her tracks by Kaito as he steps into the middle of the group, commanding everyone’s attention.

“Don’t worry about it! Just leave it to me! If those teddy bears show themselves again, I’ll kick all of their asses!” He thrusts his closed fist over his heart like some kind of soldier or something. He hopes to all the gods – to Atua for all he cares – that this man never has to lead an army. He’d fear for the soldier’s lives and sanity.

“Huh? What that?” Gonta frowns and looks around the room, completely ignoring Kaito’s declaration.

“Hm? What’s wrong?” Ryoma turns to Gonta, his deep voice thick with concern.

“Listen… Hear that?”

At once, everyone falls silent, trying to focus on whatever Gonta is hearing. As everyone holds their breath, he thinks he might be able to hear something faintly in the background but it could just be a trick of the mind because everyone is so silent. How did Gonta hear anything while everyone was still talking and being loud? It seems he has some real super human skills despite being titled the Ultimate Entomologist.

“Ah, I think I hear it. It sounds like an engine from a robot anime –” Tsumugi is the first one to break the unspoken vow of silence they’d all taken. Although it sounds completely stupid and outlandish, he kinda gets what she means. He hadn’t really grown up watching many mech anime, but it was hard to grow up without hearing the distinct sound at some point.

“Yoo-hoo. Rise and shine, ursine!” The sudden, booming singing of the squad of robot bears forces all of them to cover their ears in synchronisation.

As he stands there he’s waiting to see the arrival of the bears in the same way they’d popped up all the times before and is taken aback when their entrance is accompanied by a cloud of thick dust and a huge crash as the floor shakes throughout the gym. For a second, he thinks he’s dreaming or something, although he’s not sure why considering everything else he’s already seen today. Because standing around the group are five giant mech suits, each with its own colour scheme.

“Kyaaaaaaah!” Tsumugi flinches back, trying cover her face with her arms – although he’s not sure what that’s supposed to do.

“Everyone, behind Gonta.” Gonta instantly throws himself between everyone else and the huge machine, although to little avail. They’re so spread out, completely surrounding the group of teenagers that no matter what direction he chooses to protect them from, there are other mech’s he isn’t protecting them from.

“Wh-what the heck are these…monsters.” Tenko stutters, shuffling slightly behind Gonta’s giant form.

“Whooooooaaaa!!! So cooooool!!!” Without a seconds thought, Kokichi steps out from behind Gonta to stare down the technology. Now this is a robot! He can totally get on board with whoever designed these robots. His mind instantly goes wild as he tries to think about all the fun stuff he could do with these at his disposal.

“They’re Exisals – highly mobile bipedal weapons platforms! They’ve got lots of hometown pride too!” One of the machines shouts out much louder than necessary. Once again, he finds himself trying to cover his ears although it doesn’t really make much of a difference against the booming voice.

“I can’t keep track of these backstories.” Another voice grumbles through the Exisals speaker system.

“Wh-whatever they are, they better kill off all of the uggos and save me for last.” Miu flinches back with all the aggression and confidence she’d shown earlier completely drained out.

“Run, Himiko!” He calls out to the girl with his usual playful tone. However instead of getting a reaction from her, her face stays expressionless and completely unbothered by his jab.

“Why are you concerned about me all of a sudden?”

“Hm, didn’t someone say they would ‘kick all of their asses’?” Out of everyone in the group, Maki seems the least bothered, watching the situation play out with disappointment and boredom. He has no idea what they expected from Kaito – there was no way he was ever going to be able to do what he said he was going to do. All talk, as expected. 

“Wh-what the hell? Nobody told me about these!” Kaito is practically shaking, cowering behind Gonta along with the others.

“Alright, chill out, no need to panic… We’re probably not in any danger. If they wanted to kill us, they’d have done it by now.” Rantaro is the first one to step forward, holding and hand out behind him to gesture for everyone else to stay back. Unlike most of the others, his voice is completely calm and steady, with an air of casualness that most people wish they could have.

“So, what do you want from us? You clearly want something. That’s what the guns are for, right?” He calmly strolls up close to the nearest Exisal, looking up at it as if it was a person just like the rest of them. “Let me guess. You’re going to force us to do something, and if we don’t, we get hurt. Well, you have our attention. So, what do you want?”

Once again, he finds himself wondering what the strange boy’s talent could be. The more and more he sees, the less he believes his lie about forgetting his talent. If he’s hiding his talent, what more could he be hiding? 

“Huh, well aren’t you the wiseguy?” The yellow Exisals chuckles at the situation, bending slightly down towards Rantaro.

“I’ll start us off! Listen up! Here’s what we want you punkasses to do…” The loud blue one yells before suddenly taking an uncharacteristically quiet pause. “Hahhhh! My heart’s goin’ 100 miles per hour! I’m gonna say it! You ready?! Hell yeah it’s -”

“IT’S-A-KILLING-GAME.” The final, previously silent member of the group suddenly speaks with a voice entirely devoid of the humanity given to its other group members. Out of all of them, it’s the one that reminds him most of Keebo if he’s being honest. Both too stiff and robotic for their own good compared to the others.

“What?” Kaede’s eyebrows are drawn together as she tries to make sense of what was being said.

“M-M-Monodam! How dare you upstage me.” Monokid turns on his brethren, completely sapping away most of the tension and fear from the announcement.

“W-wait a second, what did you just say?” Tenko stammers, shuffling slightly back with her skin becoming three shades paler.

“I-If I heard him correctly –” Keebo does his best to explain but doesn’t even get to finish his sentence.

“IT’S-A-KILLING-GAME.”

A killing game. They’d all been brought here for a killing game? What did that even mean? He’d said it like that was something everyone had heard of but he still can’t wrap his head around it. Were they meant to be killing each or were their captors going to be hunting them? What was even the point of that?

In the background he can hear the Monokubs squabbling about something or another but he completely ignores them. None of it is making sense. Who would put so much funding and work into gathering all of them here and making machines like the Monokubs just for this. There’s something more going on here. He just can’t quite put his finger on it.

Before he gets any more time to think though, a new voice enters the scene. A voice much more threatening than any of the Monokubs despite having the same playful and light tone. A voice too cheerful for what is happening. A voice that would laugh at a funeral.

“Now, now, now…”


	2. The Road to Despair is Paved with Good Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group start to go down to the road to despair.

“What?” Kaede is the first one to speak, her voice echoing through the now silent gym.

“My cute little cubs… You gotta knock off this awful fighting…” The icy voice slices through the chilled room, bringing a wave of shivers with it. There's something inherently wrong with it. The high pitched cheery tone disguising the darkness writhing just underneath.

Cubs? That explains their name then. They certainly seem to have been programmed to act like children instead of acting like the threats they seem determined to make themselves out to be. Just underlings unworthy of time. 

“Oh! That voice!” The Monophanie gasps overdramatically. They've all gotten out of their Exisals now, leaving the huge towering monstrosities standing there empty and hollow. Completely lifeless and defenceless. 

Each of the Monokubs dramatically yell about their 'father', as if the rest of them weren’t standing right here in front of them. 

Father? Can robots even have parents? Kokichi’s eyes immediately flicker over to Keebo. Does Keebo have a robot dad? Based on what he’d said earlier, he’d probably say that Dr. Idabashi was his dad. Does that mean whoever these bears are calling father is their creator or is that just Keebo?

Everyone waits, shifting from foot to foot as the voice reverberates around them. Without any warning, darkness descends upon them to completely engulf them until they can’t even see their hands in front of their faces. For a second, his stomach drops out of his body as he fumbles around in the pitch black. His heart thrashes in his chest and he has to dig his fingernails into his palms to try and bring him back into the moment.

Then, just as suddenly as the lights had gone out, a spotlight flicks back on. The light hovers right over the front of the room, illuminating the podium on the stage perfectly. Then, from within the light, an even stranger sight appears.

Y'know, he’s beginning to think all of this is just one of his strange dreams – it wouldn’t be the weirdest he’s ever had. Maybe this is a sign he needs to get his imagination back under control. However, no matter how many times he blinks, nothing changes. He can still feel warm breeze brushing over his skin and can still smell the earthy, musty air hanging around him. There’s no way his dream can feel this realistic, right?

No, here he is staring at yet another robot – although this one was somehow even stranger than all the others he’d met. It’s clearly designed by whoever designed the Monokubs, however he’s completely black and white with the only colour on its entire body is the bright red eye on the black side of its body. Much stranger than everything else is the small black and white wings on his back that are somehow strong enough to lift him up into the air.

All of them hold their breaths as the strange new arrival hovers over the podium like its trying to pose as some kind of angel. As it drops down onto the podium the wings suddenly fall away leaving a strange robot matching the Monokubs sat in front of them all. As he lands the rest of the lights in the room turn back on, flooding them once more in brightness.

“I am the god of this new world… And the headmaster of this Ultimate Academy! The one, the only…Monokuma! Nice to meetcha!” He cackles, the ever-present smile etched onto his face echoing the menace laced through him. One half of the smile stretches up his face, showing off the sharp shiny teeth that have no business being on a toy like him. 

All of them can just stand there watching the circus act going on in front of them as the robots bounce off of one another. Its hard to keep track of everything that is happening as the collection of robots completely and utterly ignore all the rest of them. It seems like a pretty strange design for AI robots but that seems to just be a theme of today. 

“What is this? What’s going on?” Yet again, Kaede is the first one to recover, stepping forward and cutting through the distance separating all of them from the bears.

“Another teddy bear appeared?” Tsumugi frowns, still hiding behind Gonta. He hands are clenched together as she hunches over making herself as small as possible. 

“Yes, but that is no ordinary teddy bear. I can see it…the despair and madness swirling around that cursed thing...” Korekiyo’s smooth and quiet voice sends shivers down his spine. He can totally see what the weirdo means. There’s something about the machine – even if it is just a soulless collection of metal – that seems to be possessed by something malevolent.

“Whoa… First of all, I’m no teddy bear. I’m Monokuma. And show some respect! I’m the headmaster of the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles!” Monokuma repeats his ridiculous claim yet again. Who in their right mind would make a robot the headmaster of a school? Unless he means their creator...

“Headmaster?” The quiet voice of Maki appears behind him. He'd almost forgotten she was there. Unlike the others, she hasn't withdrawn or backed away in the slightest. Even with most her face covered as she bites he nail, he can see her mind working at a million miles per hour.

So much for the ultimate child care giver...then again, in his experience kids are hell spawn. What better example of that does he have of that than himself? Maybe her behaviour isn't so strange after all. Someone who can tame kids - especially the kids he grew up with - would have to be tough. Not that he can imagine taking orders from someone like Maki when he was a kid. 

“It appears to be some kind of autonomous robot with a built in AI, like me…” Keebo isn’t wrong, these are definitely AI but why go to the effort of making them for this rubbish. What joy is there to be gained from a 'killing' game? Seems like so much effort and funding for something so useless. Unless...

“Dong dong dong.”

“The Exisals are different, though! They’re brainless buckets of bolts!” One of the bears hits his giant hulking Exisal, drawing their attention to the unmoving and lifeless mech.

“They’re mindless pretty killing machines that can only be controlled by us, the Monokubs.” The Monophanie explains proudly. Only by the Monokubs...huh? If they could only get control of the mech's maybe they could get the upper hand on these things. 

“Autonomous robots piloting weapons platforms…This is certainly turning into quite the story.” Ryoma mumbles. A story. That’s exactly what it sounds like. Some kind of stupid story or TV show. The sort of thing he'd probably love to read or watch in his free time. But nothing grounded in reality.

“Well, that may be, but what I’m worried about is this ‘ _killing game’_ you mentioned. What exactly does that mean?” Rantaro goes straight to the heart of the issue. As level headed as ever. 

“Puhu…puhuhuhuhu…”

“What is so amusing?” Kirumi scowls at the strange bears chuckling. It's the first time he's seen an actual emotion on her face. The tin lady feels emotions. Wow, all the robots are just becoming human now.

“It’s just…when I said it before, I kinda just phoned it in and now I feel awkward…” He keeps on chuckling to himself. “I want you students with your ultimate level talents to participate in a killing game.” His laughter suddenly cuts out as his bloodlust begins rising. And not just Monokuma's bloodlust. 

“K-killing game? Us?” Kaede looks around at everyone. Her voice is lacking the conviction he’d been expecting from her. More timid than before. 

“Please stop joking! Why would we agree to participate in a killing game?!” By comparison, Keebo is much more confident with a voice of steel. Unlike how he tripped and stumbled before, now he steps forward determinedly. Awww, he's growing up. Maybe robots do have balls. 

“Huh? You guys don’t wanna do it?” Monokuma pouts childishly.

“C-Course not! Gentlemen do not hurt people!” He can see the sweat beading on Gonta’s forehead in spite of his declaration. When he looks close enough he almost thinks he can see him trembling ever so slightly. But he holds his ground as the shield between the robots and the rest of them. Well, just Tsumugi really.

“But if you’ve looked around the academy, then you already know, don’t you? The academy is surrounded by a huge wall. You can’t escape to the outside world… And as long as we have the Exisals, you can’t defy us. In other words…I hold the power of life and death over each and every one of you.”

He’s not wrong. Though he didn't check it in great detail, just a cursory look was enough to tell him that. There’s no way they’re going to be able to climb that, not without some out of the box thinking. Even so, there’s no way he’s just going to lay down and accept what Monokuma says. If he did that he might as well be saying he's lost to some dumb robot. 

“So do what you say if we don’t want to die.” Rantaro stays completely calm and collected…as if he already knew and expected all of this.

“Y-you gotta be kidding me! Why would friends kill each other?!” Tenko declares as if they’re all friends for some reason. He’d never even spoken to most these people before. Sure, he might not want to kill any of them but that certainly doesn’t make them friends. For all he knows one of these people might be behind all this – Miu and Keebo definitely spring to mind. Someone has to have made and programmed these robots.

“…Who said you guys were friends? You guy’s aren’t friends at all… You’re enemies out to kill each other.” Monokuma chuckles again as if he finds of the chaos funny. Can he really blame him though? 

“E-Enemies…?” Shuichi speaks for the first time. For a detective he'd kinda expected the emo boy to be a little quicker on the ball. Apparently that was too high of an expectation though...

“We’re enemies?” She turns to Shuichi, just as confused and uncertain as she’d been before. How is all this so confusing to these people? 

“Hmmmm…I still have a lot to learn from Father about sarcasm.” Monotaro speaks as if that sense in the slightest.

“All this talkin’ is buggin’ the shit outta me! I gotta beat up Monodam to relieve the stress!” Monokid yells boisterously like always. Can you even beat up a robot?

“But…I don’t like that. I’m not good with violence or gore or sad situations. Um…Daddy, instead of a killing game, could we do a rock-paper-scissors tournament?” These bears are just making less and less sense.

“Who’d wanna play a game where nobody dies?!” He could almost scoff at the yellow Monokubs words. Probably the dumbest thing he's heard today. At what point does it stop becoming a game and start becoming a slaughter?

“Well, you do have a compassionate personality. It’s so cute I can barely stand it. Why it’s cute enough to eat! Cute enough that I wanna eat it.” Although Monokuma’s words seem pleasant enough, his tone seems more aggressive than the words would lead you to believe.

“...Eh?”

“Hey, Monophanie. You might wanna dial back on the cute schtick a bit.” One of the other Monokubs places a hand – paw? – on her shoulder and whispers louder than necessary.

“Cool it with the stupid banter. I wanna ask something. How are we supposed to kill each other? Are you going to give us weapons?” Ryoma asks with a much more serious tone than everyone else here. Is he looking for weapons for the killing game Monokuma wants them to do? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed someone…

“What the hell man?! What are you asking?” Kaito seems to be on the same lines as him – now that’s embarrassing – as he steps forward towards the small convict.

“We need to get info from them first. We can’t do anything if we don’t know anything.” Do anything? There's only one thing he could want to do.

“Weapons? Huh? What kinda barbaric display are you envisioning?! You couldn’t be more wrong. Why, at the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles…the killing game is quite the refined, sophisticated experience!” He can’t help but wonder how they’re supposed to be doing this ‘game’ if there aren’t any weapons.

“Sophisticated experience?” Maki crosses her arms with a tensed face.

“Yes… Here the killing game is punctuated by class trials.” Monokuma clears his throat, ignoring Maki completely.

“Class…trials…?” Kaede mumbles under her breath.

“Okay! Let us explain!” Monokubs announce all together.

All of them listen as the robots explain the long list of rules surrounding the ‘class trial’. He's good at what he does so he's never actually been to a trial before but from what he has seen they're incredibly boring. Snotty lawyers all talking endlessly. Not something he ever wants to actually have to do. At least this one sounds much more fun... Other trials could do with taking a page from this. The chaos will at least make things interesting. If all this killing wasn’t involved it might actually be pretty fun. More interesting than resigning himself to living here for the rest of his life.

Although he must say, he's not particularly happy about the voting rule. He’s going to have to rely on these people to solve a murder to avoid a 'punishment'. The interactions so far don’t give him much hope for their chances. It’s a good thing they’ve got an actual detective here to make up for all the Kaito’s of the group.

“One can likely imagine…but I shall ask, just in case…what is the ‘punishment’ you mentioned earlier?” Korekiyo almost seems happy as he speaks. It's not even surprising at this point. 

“Simply put, it’s an execution!” Monokuma says it so casually that it catches him off guard even though he’d already assumed that would be the punishment dealt to them. It’s a lot more sever, and permeant, than any punishment he’d received before. A wave of anger passes through him. 

“E-Execution?!” Gonta swallows deeply but, as always, holds his ground. The more and more they speak the harder and harder it gets to cover up the boy's shaking. He almost feels bad for the guy – although that could all just be an act…

“If you do a crime, you get punished for it. That’s like the most basic rule of society. But this is a killing game so the punishment for murder is a bit more…permanent.” Kokichi grits his teeth. Even if someone committed murder is that really a fitting punishment? Just like he said, it’s very permanent. Nothing _fun_ about it. 

“Killing school semester… It’s like a game.” Rantaro’s face darkens, a shadow crossing over his face.

“Kehehe…risking our lives for some silly game is absurd.” Korekiyo, yet again, seems a little too happy with the situation. That smile...

“It doesn’t seem like it’ll be boring, though.” There’s no way he’s going to allow this robot to tell him what to do but that doesn’t mean he can’t have fun while he’s here. If Monokuma wants him to kill to leave here then he’s just going to have to find another way to escape and take the arsehole who put them here down.

“Hey! How can you degenerates be so calm?!” Tenko yells at the three of them with a ferocity that contrasts the fearful tone she’d had only moments earlier.

“Th-this has to be a lie…right? It’s…a lie, right?” Tsumugi’s face pales further, she almost looks like she’s going to throw up. Like a true gentleman, Gonta reaches down and places a gentle hand on her arm. And she’s not the only one who looks like they’re going to throw up.

“I-I don’t want…to be in a killing game… It’s wrong, I… I’d never do that.” Shuichi face is still hidden by his cap but there’s no way of hiding the paleness of his skin.

“Puhuhu… Well, if you don’t wanna participate in the killing game, that gonna be a problem… Cuz the killing game is the only reason you’re here.” Monokuma’s sinister voice rings through the room once again.

“…What?”

“Now then, unleash your talents and have a happy, homicidal, horrific, hilarious killing game!” He cackles loudly, wrapped up in his own little monologue.

“W-wait just a minute!” Kaede’s voice stutters as she tries to keep up with everything happening right now.

“…Hm?”

“No matter what you say… We won’t do it! We’ll never participate in a killing game! Whatever you have planned, I’m not gonna let you get away with it!” The confidence he’d heard in her voice before makes a sudden return. _If only all the others were feeling the same way_ , he thinks as he looks at all the other students they’re trapped in here with.

“K-Kaede! You shouldn’t just rashly defy that thing…” Tenko shuffles towards her, trying to pull her back from Monokuma and the Monokubs.

“No, no! I welcome her resistance! That kinda defiant spirit is important to the killing game. It’s fun to watch the defiant ones eventually snap, and get their hands dirty…” He smiles gleefully, almost egging Kaede on. Trying to lure her into the mindset he wants.

“Wh-What do you mean by that…?” She looks taken aback despite all the bravado she had just had.

“Everyone loves that kind of brutality in a death game! Especially me! It never gets old! It’s so fun and entertaining that I just get un-bear-ably pumped up! Plus, as the headmaster, it’s my job to force you to do it. Ahahahaha!” Monokuma and the Monokubs all disappear together in a wave of laughter, taking the Exisals with them. Leaving them to all ponder everything that had just happened.

Before he can even begin to start putting together a plan, sharp and loud ringing sounds echo throughout the gym. There's one for everyone, which can only mean...

He reaches into his pocket, pulling out the Monopad. As soon as it’s in his hand the screen lights up, the rule menu which had been blocked before now opening up for him to inspect. They’re all brightly designed with neon colours and strange animations.

For the most part the rules are pretty standard, all the same stuff Monokuma told them along with a few other basic ones. Things like the gym and dining room being off limits at night – although he has no idea why just those rooms would be banned at night – and that they can’t destroy their Monopads… Not many of these rules make much sense.

The only other one that stands out to him is the rule about the game itself: it’ll continue until there are only two people remaining. Why would that be? Why would they let two people leave this place? Or do they just mean the game itself would end and Monokuma would just kill whoever was left? He wouldn’t be surprised. Surely any survivors would be bad for this psychopath. Or psychopaths. 

“The Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles School Regulations… So these are the rules…” Ryoma is holding his own Monopad in his hands, flicking through all the tabs.

“I do not understand why someone…would force us to do this?” Kirumi slips her Monopad back into her pocket with a stern and sombre expression.

“But the rules are pretty cut and dry. This game doesn’t seem like it’ll be boring.” The challenge should, at the very least, prove to be entertaining. With all the resources and power the person behind all this has, he’s not expecting it to be easy, but that’s what’ll make it fun. 

“That’s not the problem.” Tenko growls at him, barely restraining herself.

“Please lower your voice. It is ruining the atmosphere.” Korekiyo hisses, glaring at Tenko rather than him. His bandaged hand is still clutching the monopad with more force than necessary. Something about him sets Kokichi on edge. 

“Hey, hey!” Angie’s light-hearted and jovial voice slices through the heavy tension, “What does this sixth regulation mean? The killing game and class trials will continue until only two surviving students remain. Only two surviving students? What would be the reason for that?” She sings cheerfully, directly contrasting her own words.

“Perhaps it’s because you couldn’t do a class trial with just two people…?” Despite his pale complexion, Shuichi looks better than he had before. But even so his hands are curled into fists, pressed close to his side.

“Nyahahaha, I see, I see. You’re so smart Shuichi.” Her laughter lightens the room, despite everything else happening right now. A happy bright sheen painted over the mess they're all in right now. 

“Q-Quit screwing around… Killing game… School Regulations… To hell with all that crap! Who’d go along with something like that?!” Kaito tries to uphold his confident and boisterous attitude, but it’s easy to see the sweat beading on his forehead as he stammers the words out.

Just when Kokichi thought he couldn’t get any dumber, he lifts the monopad up above his head. His arm is bent back ready to smash the pad against the ground with as much force as possible. He almost can’t believe Kaito is actually going to try and break it, although he’s not sure why. Kokichi might not like to play by the rules but even he knows there's a time and a place. Apparently no one ever taught Kaito that though. 

However, luckily for Kaito, Rantaro darts forward and grabs a hold of Kaito’s wrist. The boy instantly freezes, the monopad still in hand as he stares down Rantaro.

“Whoa, hey now, don’t do that. School rules say you can’t break it.”

“If you violate the rules, then the Exisals will dispose of you…” Maki shakes her head calmly. She might as well be rolling her eyes.

“I don’t care about the rules! No way I’m gonna play this messed up game!” Kaito hisses through gritted teeth but he firmly keeps a hold of the monopad. In the soft lighting of the gym he can just about see the astronauts knuckles turning white.

“This isn’t about ‘playing’ the game. It’s too dangerous to disobey him now.” Rantaro drops Kaito’s wrist and steps back, giving the hot head some space. For a second Kokichi thinks Kaito might still do it, he might still be dumb enough, but then he pulls his hand and the Monopad back down to his side. 

“Forget about him! Just means one less dumbass for the world to deal with!” Miu scoffs, rolling her eyes over dramatically. He can't help but agree. Survival of the fittest got them to this point. 

“Hey! Who are you callin’ a dumbass?!” Kaito steps towards the inventor as if he has legs to stand on. Is it bad if he kinda wants to laugh right now. 

“HEY!!! QUIT FIGHTING ALREADY!!!” The sudden shout from Kaede makes everyone stop in their tracks. All eyes are back on Kaede, waiting for her next words.

“Whoa! Wh-what the – ?!” Kaito flinches back reflexively.

“We shouldn’t be fighting amongst ourselves. Right now, we _need_ to work together.” Kaede smiles softly, her face lighting up. It’s almost sickeningly sweet. “Honestly…I’d probably be more inspiring if I played a song than gave a speech… Chopin’s ‘military polonaise’ would definitely help unite us!” Is that some kind of music? She’s some kinda piano player, right?

“Yeah, I could get behind some Bolognese, and I don’t even like meat or tomatoes.” He laughs cheerfully only to find everyone rolling their eyes at him. Clearly none of them understand a joke? Piece by piece he's losing his faith in humanity.

“I agree with Kaede, too! We must remember who the real enemy is! Master told me that strength must always be aimed in the proper direction!” Tenko jumps forward, energetic once again. The whiplash from her is crazy.

At her side is Himiko who’s trembling like a leaf. Is she even the same age as the rest of them? Him and Ryoma might be short but she just seems…young. Small and vulnerable. Is that why Tenko has been sticking so close to her side all this time?

“A-Anyway…you’re all panicking too much… Just… stay calm…like me…”

“Wow! You’re shaking so much!” Angie giggles, bending her body side to side gleefully.

“Even I can’t handle these intense vibrations! And trust me – I’ve got loads of experience!” Miu’s outburst catches him completely off guard. What even is her character? He can’t pinpoint it in the slightest.

“Anyway…why don’t we work together and search for an exit one more time?” Kaede keeps on talking as if she hadn’t heard anything. The blind optimism in her voice kinda reminds him of Kaito if he’s being honest - which he always is of course.

“But…we looked all over that wall and there wasn’t a single hole.” Tsumugi explains. So, she also examined the wall then? He was beginning to wonder if he was the only one. 

“Now wait just a second. If there is no opening in the wall…then how did we get inside these walls in the first place?” He’s almost surprised to hear Keebo make a good point, although he supposes Keebo isn’t exactly dumb – at least not most of the time.

“Oh, good point!” Tsumugi suddenly brightens up out of nowhere, some of the colour returning to her face. She stands in front of them all, smiling brightly, as if she hadn't just been cowering behind Gonta a minute ago.

“That means there must be an opening somewhere! We just have to find it! Whoever trapped us here wants us to fight each other…so let’s show ‘em that we’re not gonna let that happen! We’re not gonna fight each other! We’re going to work together! Okay?!” Her voice is completely steady, brimming with determination. Her naivete and blindness is astonishing. Does she really believe that would work in the slightest?

Despite the flaws with the plan, it seems to have resonated with everyone judging by the silence. Even if it is silly, whatever works to stop them from killing each other… No matter what they choose to do, he'll have to do this on his own anyway. 

“Why are you so quiet…? Did I say something wrong?” Kaede’s voice falters, a blush rising to her cheeks suddenly.

Just like that, the dark and heavy feeling that had been weighing down on all of them – except maybe Angie – has been lifted. It’s faded away like dust in the wind. Or has just been covered up temporarily. Whatever works for them. 

“On the contrary. You made your case with such succinct aplomb that we’ve been rendered speechless.” Kirumi smiles softly, in an almost motherly way. For some reason a feeling of sadness washes over him for a second, like a dark pit in his stomach. But then – after just a second – it’s gone like it was never there to begin with.

“Heh… I was gonna say the same thing, but you beat me to it… You’re exactly right! We can’t give up so easily!” Kaito jumps into the conversation, full of his usual bravado.

“Let’s split up and try to find the exit! Ohhhh! Atua give us strength!” Angie cheers yet again, throwing her arms up in the air so her bracelets jingle loudly.

“I must admit, I admire your spirit.” Rantaro gives his usual carefree smile, scratching the back of his neck. There's something about his tone. It's obvious he's on the same page as Kokichi at the very least. Someone else here has a brain of their own. 

“Oh, wait!” Gonta suddenly announces and holds his hand up in the air as high as he can.

“Nyeh…? What is it? We were just about to get started.” Himiko drawls, already brushing off Gonta’s suggestion without even hearing it.

“Um… maybe it not matter much, but… Gonta find manhole cover earlier. In grass, behind school building.”

“A manhole?” Kaede narrows her eyes, unspoken thoughts racing through her mind.

As much as he’d like to think that the manhole Gonta found will just lead to a way out, there’s no way that’d happen. If it was that easy then they’d have the Exisals guarding it at all times. No way would they let Gonta just walk up and open it. Whatever is down there, Monokuma _wants_ them to see it. 

“Gonta peek in. See big underground passage. Think maybe it exit… Sorry. Is probably not so simple.” He suddenly looks dejected, staring down at his bare feet.

“Y-you gotta mention important stuff like that much faster!” Tenko yells at him, although he can understand why. They cant afford to let this kind of information pass them by, no matter how unlikely it is to actually lead anywhere. If Gonta finds anything again then they need to make sure they all actually hear about it.

“Gontapeekin! Seebigundergroundpassage! Thinkmaybeitexit!”

“Wait, not like that! You’re talking too fast!” She shakes her head, hardly restraining herself form face palming.

“The boiler is behind the school building. We must corroborate Gonta’s claim at once. Gonta please lead the way.” Kirumi instantly takes charge of the situation. Any lead is better than none.

“Okay! Everyone, follow Gonta!” Gonta smiles proudly, walking out of the gym with purpose. Not really having anything else to do, everyone else follows patiently behind him to leave the gym.

As he leaves the room, he notices a few people standing rooted in their spots from the corner of his eye. Shuichi, Kaede and Rantaro…what are those three doing. Are they plotting something? They did all show up in the classroom he’d awoken in pretty close together…and Shuichi and Kaede have been pretty much joined at the hip. An uncertain feeling wells up inside him but he squashes it down. He’ll have to figure out what their deal is later…

Right as he is about to round the corner into the corridor, Rantaro’s eyes meet his own. The boy smiles ever so slightly, the edge of his mouth curving up a little. All Kokichi can do is flash him a brilliant smile as he steps forward and vanishes from Rantaro’s line of sight.

“Nyeh...why do we all have to go…?” Himiko grumbles from just in front of him, trying to keep Tenko from grabbing onto her arm as they walk side by side.

“It is best if we all investigate the area, after all, if it is an exit then we should all leave together.” Kirumi looks over her shoulder at Tenko and Himiko.

“Unless you wanna stay behind that is.” He leans forward so his head is right between Tenko and Himiko, forcing them apart.

“What are you implying, you degenerate?! Of course she doesn’t!” Tenko immediately jumps to her defense and grabs onto Himiko’s arm to pull her forward and further away from him. Tenko doesn’t let go of Himiko’s arm, even when she starts grumbling, her feet dragging across the ground.

“What are you doing, Kokichi?” Keebo scowls at him. He’s surprised the see the robot walking next to him, instead of walking beside Miu who’s up ahead with Gonta. They’d seemed close earlier…although maybe that was more of a one-sided thing.

“You wound me.” He sticks his bottom lip out, letting his eyes well up with tears. “I thought you liked me, especially since you chose to walk next to me.”

“I most certainly did not choose to walk next to you.” He rolls his eyes and shuffles away from Kokichi although he doesn’t try to run ahead or fall behind. Despite all his scowling and complaining, he stays at Kokichi's side. Is he trying to keep an eye on him or something...?

“I didn’t know a robot could be a tsundere! Is that what that doctor guy made you for?!”

“I already told you, Dr. Idabashi made me with a learning AI and raised me just like I was his child.” So what, Keebo was just some sort of replacement child? That still doesn’t really answer any questions about his purpose.

“Borrrinnnngggg…” He sighs deeply. Before Keebo can even try to stop him, he runs on ahead to try and catch up with some of the others. He’s not at all surprised to see Keebo still hanging back, showing no sign of trying to follow him.

The entire group is pretty bunched together, so it only takes a second to catch up with the front of the group. They barely even look around at him as he approaches. In fact, the only one who turns to see him approach is Miu.

“Oi, you!” She yells loudly, earning some odd looks from the others.

“I prefer to go by the name Kokichi, y’know.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you prefer to go by, dick cheese.” Her domineering personality makes everyone shuffle away from her ever so slightly.

“Whatever, whore.” He scoffs, letting her comments roll off of him. Instantly, she completely flips, cowering with tears edging onto her eyes. Even her hair seems to have gone limp and flaccid. Is that even possible?

“W-Whore…?” She whimpers, letting her hands wring the edge of her shirt pathetically.

“You’re an inventor, right?” He can hardly even tell if she’s really listening to him. Not when she’s trembling as much as she is.

“Y-yeah…W-why…?” Her bottom lip trembles weakly as she speaks.

An inventor is probably one of the most useful skills of anyone here…if anyone was going to be able figure a way out of here, it would be her. She doesn’t seem the easiest to work with but maybe he’ll just have to take a bullet here. It might be the best way to beat this game for once and for all. After all, the Monokubs mentioned that they're the only ones that can move the Exisals, but if Miu could take control of them, it might be a different story. 

“I saw ya talking to Keebo earlier.” He coos playfully.

“What? Keebo?” Almost at once she seems to have recovered. “He is pretty impressive! I’d love to take him a part and figure out how he was made. I’d love to get my hands on one of those Monokubs too.” A sinister – or perhaps mischievous smile – plays on her lips. He certainly wouldn’t want to be in Keebo’s shoes right now. She really might try and sneak up on him to take him apart. Would that count as a murder...?

As useful as it might be to take one of the Monokubs apart, that would break the rules…wouldn’t it? Then again, the rule only mentioned not harming Monokuma – maybe they really could try to kidnap a Monokubs to take it apart. Is that even possible with the Exisals under their control?

He doesn’t even realise they’ve arrived at their destination until the people ahead of them suddenly stop. He only just manages to catch himself before he walks right into Korekiyo’s back. They couldn’t have given him any warnings before stopping?

“We here!” Gonta announces as he pulls open a heavy metal door leading into what he assumes is the boiler room. In true fashion, he stands by the door and holds it open so everyone else can walk in.

He’d never come around this side of the school building before and he hadn’t realised there was quite so much back here. It’s pretty impressive just how much space there is here. It would take a long time to search the entire caged area…at least if he was trying to do it thoroughly. 

“Thank you, Gonta.” Tsumugi gives him a warm and sweet smile as she walks past him.

As he steps into the room, he is immediately greeted by warm stale air. Yet again, thick and dense greenery has wormed its way into the building to the point where the floor is basically not visible through the grass. It’s just been abandoned to nature. Left to rot like most of this school.

“So, the manhole was hidden in a place like this, huh? Well, you can’t hide stuff from the eyes of Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars.” Kaito seemingly claims the discovery of the area, looking around at the new room they’ve found themselves in.

“What purpose does this facility serve. One would assume that all this greenery would interfere with the machinery… Does this mean preparations were not completed before we arrived?” Kirumi mumbles, peering at the huge machines filling the room. A gloved hand reaches out to delicately brush aside some of the vines. But even with them pushed to the side, all there is too see is rusty metal. 

She definitely not wrong, through the greenery he can see rust etched onto the metallic surfaces. Whatever they were for, he doubts they’ve worked for a long time. Why would this be in a school? Or was this even a school to begin with?

“Where are the others?” Tsumugi places her index finger on her chin, looking up at the ceiling with her eyes glazed over.

“The others?”

“Oh, yeah!” Gonta shouts out as he steps into the room, the heavy door slamming behind him.

“They hung back in the gym. I’m totally sure there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.” He chuckles with a big ol’ fake smile plastered on his face. None of them seem like idiots so he doubts they’d try anything so obviously. Even so...

“What do those fuckers think they’re doing keepin’ us waitin’!?” Miu scowls, back to her old self. That didn’t last long.

“Should we just go on without them?” Tsumugi mumbles under her breath – almost as if she was ashamed to say it. Not exactly what he'd expected from her. 

“We can’t go without them! What about Kaede?!” Tenko suddenly jumps into defensive stance. Her sudden movement causes Himiko to flinch at her side. 

“We no leave people behind!” Gonta nods fiercely.

Thankfully, they don’t have to wait for long until the door quietly opens and Rantaro walks in, completely at ease. The others aren’t with him though. He’s alone… What the hell are Kaede and Shuichi doing?

“This is the place?” He looks around the room, drinking in the sights. “I would never have guessed a manhole would be in a place like this…”

“It hard to find because of all the grass but Gonta got good eyes!” He runs over to the metal hats and points down at it with a sweet and proud smile reaches his lips.

As he looks around, he can see what Gonta means. Even with Gonta pointing at it, he can barely see anything resembling a manhole. It’s well hidden to say the least. If he didn't know what to look for it would be almost impossible to see.

“Do you happen to know where Kaede and Shuichi are?” Kirumi asks politely, keeping the same formal façade as always.

“They’re just on their way now. They’ll be here any minute now.” As if on cue, the door opens again as the final pair enter the room. “Looks like we’re all here. So, where’s this manhole?”

“Ummm… Over there, in grass.” Gonta steps forward and moves some of the grass out of the way so they can all see the metal covering hidden just beneath.

“Whoa, look at all these weeds. This place could use a grounds keeper. Right, Kee-boy?!” He leans over and nudges Keebo with his elbow. As soon as Kokichi makes contact, Keebo stiffens up, clenching his robojaw.

“Why are you telling me that? Furthermore…I would prefer you address me as ‘Keebo’.”

“But you can pull weeds. Right, Kee-boy?”

“I can do all sorts of things just as well as any person!” His response is surprisingly earnest. Does he not notice the implication here?

“As well as any person…? But…you’re not a person.” Even he admits it.

“Th-that’s discrimination… Robophobic discrimination.” Something that looks like sweat has built up on his forehead. Why give a robot a sweat function and no blasters? None of it makes any sense.

“Wowww! It’s like a super-secret entrance! I’m so excited! Atua is just as excited as I am! I know, cuz he told me!” Angie skips right over to the manhole, bobbing her head as she does so.

“Now’s not the time to be shouting and celebrating… Even if this is the exit, it’s all over if Monokuma catches us.” Ryoma takes charge once again. He’s not wrong exactly, but wouldn’t Monokuma have stopped them before it got to this point? Those Monokubs showed up as if they’d been monitoring his movements. Now he thinks about it, how have they been monitoring them all?

“I agree. We need to be quick about this.” Rantaro nods, although one look at him and its obvious he’s thinking the same kind of thing as Kokichi. Something definitely isn’t right. What could possibly be down there?

“The ground opens up before us, as though inviting us downward… Once we are swallowed by darkness, will we be able to return to the light…? Kehehe…” Okayyyyyy…Korekiyo seems to be talking to himself…entertaining himself with his own weird ramblings…

“An important hole near some bush?! Sound familiar, am I right ladies?” Miu nudges Tsumugi, her elbow digging into the cosplayers boob – although he cant tell if that was intentional or not. From what little he's seen of Miu, he's gotta guess it's intentional though.

“Awwww this manhole cover even looks heavy. Can we even lift it?” Angie has bent down closer to the manhole cover than necessary. Examining it as if it will just magically move out of the way.

“I can try.” Keebo jumps at the opportunity, walking right past everyone else and muscling his way up to the cover. He won’t lie, he has a bad feeling about this. After hearing all the pointless functions Keebo has, he doubts the doctor would have actually added a useful function like increased strength.

And sure enough…

“Grgh…! Grrrrrrgh…! How embarrassing. It won’t even budge.” He stares down at the manhole, dejectedly.

“Huhhhh? A robot’s not even strong enough to move it?” Angie sings. If he didn’t know any better he’d say she was rubbing it in.

“Oh, don’t worry. My physical strength is approximate to that of a strong senior citizen.” He explains as if that somehow clears everything up. If he already knew that, why volunteer? It's like he wants to be put down. Him and Miu might get along better than he thought after all. 

“Th-that’s fuckin’ pathetic!” He hadn’t expected Miu to go in on Keebo like that.

“Th-the professor did no what a repeat of the tragedy that occurred during trial production.” Now that sounds like a cool story. What happened to that cool robot in order to get this boring one. 

“Umm… Now I’m just plain curious about what happened during that trial.” Tsumugi mutters, her eyes still kind of glazed over. It’s like she’s in her own little world or something. So far that's just been her constant state of being though. 

“Oh, then allow Gonta. Gonta lift the cover before to peek inside. Should be able to pick up cover too.” He reaches down and casually picks up the manhole cover. If he hadn’t just seen Keebo fail to pick it up he’d have thought it was as light as paper. “Upsy-daisy.”

“So easily?!” Tsumugi gasps.

“His strength…must be due to my magic. Yup…there’s no mistaking it.”

“Oooohh! You’re amazing, Himiko!” Tenko fawns over Himiko yet again, even though the other girl doesn’t seem to hear a word she says.

“What should Gonta do with cover now?” The cover is just hanging from his grip as he holds it up for everyone to see.

“Please leave it somewhere else. Be careful not to hit anyone with it.” Kirumi gestures to the wide empty room around them. After all, there’s not much else they can really do with the cover.

“Um, actually…Gonta no can do that… Very rude to litter…”

However, despite his objection, he finds himself launching the cover across the room in an impressive feat of strength. Now that’s a talent! They’d called him the Ultimate Entomologist but personally he’d say that’s the least of his impressive traits. In a killing game he might be the single biggest threat. At least if he wasn’t so…soft…

“Kehehe…what wonderful strength. You could likely crush a child’s skull with ease.” Korekiyo’s comment comes out of nowhere but he decides to completely ignore it. People say there’s something wrong with him when there’s people like this guy out in the world…

“How ungentlemanly! Gonta _never_ do that!” He genuinely looks hurt by the implication.

“Gentleman or not, no one would do that.” Tenko glares right at Korekiyo as passionately as ever.

“But Gonta is so much more reliable than some bean counting robot.”

“Are you…talking about me? Because I can count many things, not just beans.” Yet again, Keebo seems to not pick up on his ‘subtlety’. It's getting harder and harder to gauge his intelligence. 

They all slowly approach the manhole. Even from a distance he can feel a cold breeze rising up from the darkness. That breeze carried with it a distinct smell of metal and damp from somewhere deep within. It’s like this is entire place smells damp and musty. The cool air is a nice change from the rest of this place though. 

“This place is creepy. Are we actually going in there?” Tsumugi is the first one to back away from the deep dark pit.

“I’m sure it’s fine. At the very least, we definitely won’t die down there.” Kaito announces like that’s somehow a fact. Whatever makes people happy…

“If anything happens, I’ll protect most of you! But the degenerate males are on their own!” He’s starting to get the feeling that Tenko might not like men… Who’d have guessed it.

“Then…Gonta protect menfolk.” At least Gonta is going to try and protect them. Obviously he doesn’t trust anyone here but he’d much rather have Gonta protecting him than Tenko – he’d put his money on Gonta taking down Tenko any day. Besides, he’d say Gonta is probably the least likely to kill out of anyone here. Unless that’s all a lie…

“Awfully quiet…Where are Monokuma and the Monokubs?” Rantaro mumbles, although it’s almost too quiet for anyone to hear. More of a breath than actual words.

“I was certain they would show up at some point and crush us like rotten gnats…”

“Nyahahaha! They probably haven’t noticed yet!” If only that was the case. All of them are here so what else would the robots be monitoring other than their movements.

“Then let’s hurry before they show up to mess with us.” Who is he to crush all their dreams? Nothing he says is going to change anything anyway. They can’t just leave this unexplored out of fear. At this point, what is more there to fear than what they already have?

As all of them stand there waiting, Rantaro squeezes past them and sits down by the hole. His legs dangle down into the darkness, searching for the rungs of the ladder. With only the one ladder, all they can do is watch as he slowly makes his way down, leaving them all behind.

Once he’s further down, Kokichi makes his way over to the hole and lowers himself down. He might as well get this over with. Small spaces and the dark have never really bothered him, in fact it’s almost comforting.

As he slowly moves down, he can feel the rough, rusting metal of the rungs on the palms of his hands. There’s a slight hint of moisture clinging to the surfaces along with the peeling off flakes of metal. With such a long passage the noise echoes around making it hard to tell where it is coming from. The footsteps of Rantaro shuffling down the ladder beneath him or the ones of whoever the silhouette above him is, it’s impossible to tell which.

As the person above him moves, the green tinted light from above manages to make its way down towards him, although even when the light is there, the rungs are still barely visible. He just keeps moving silently, carefully feeling for the rungs one by one.

When his feet finally hit the floor below, he staggers for a second, unprepared for the solid ground. Rantaro has already moved out of the way, searching the new underground room they’ve found themselves in.

Kokichi brushes his hands off on his shirt, trying to clear off all the lingering rust and moisture. That’s going to stain the white material…that’s probably an issue for another time though. Based on everything he’s seen so far, there are probably washing machines or something somewhere in this school.

One by one, people drop down from the ladder into the room, congregating in the cold. The novelty of the cool air has worn off in seconds leaving him supressing involuntary shivers. Damn, now he wishes he had some kind of jumper or something. Anything to keep preserve a little warmth.

“It’s more spacious down here than I thought it’d be.” Ryoma mutters as he drops down off the of ladder to join them.

“Yodelay-hee-hoooooo!” He cups his hands around his mouth to help amplify the call. Sure enough, the sound echoes through the large, empty room incredibly well. How big is this place?

“Oooohhh!! It echoes well. Must be pretty big then. A giant underground passage is so exciting! I wanna play hide-and-seek in here!” This entire place would be fantastic for hide-and-seek. Maybe he’ll have his own little game of it later on. If they're stuck here, might as well have some fun. 

“Hide-and-seek?” Kaede frowns at him. He hadn’t even realised she’d been listening to him.

“Nee-heehee… I am the master of hide-and-seek. As the supreme leader of an evil organisation, I’m always on the run from the law… And over time I became a total pro at hiding. Just kidding! That was a lie!” It’s always been one of his greatest assets. It’s what makes his D.I.C.E excursions so much fun. It’s only fun as long as you don’t get caught. At least, most of the time.

“Yeah, I thought so…”

With that, Kaede walks away from him, heading over to return to her loyal dog’s side. Party poopers, the whole lot of them.

“What is this place…?” Maki brushes her hands off and walks in with a serious expression.

“An old industrial passageway, I suspect… Perhaps factories once existed here?” Kirumi could definitely be right. Just like the floor above, it doesn’t seem to fit into the school aesthetic – not that anything here does.

“And this is all that’s left of ‘em?” Kaito hums thoughtfully, although who knows what’s going on through his mind. He doesn’t think he’d want to know.

“Hey, take a look at this. What a considerate sign… Apparently, the end of the tunnel is the exit.” Rantaro nods at the shoddily made ‘exit sign’ stuck right in front of the entrance to a long tunnel. Sure, considerate is one way to put it. Probably not the way he would though.

“Considerate? You don’t think it’s weird that someone went out of their way to write exit?” Tenko exclaims loudly, as if they aren’t all already thinking that.

“Hah-haha! Don’t piss yourself in fear! Your natural scent is bad enough!” Miu cackles as if she wasn’t the one pissing herself earlier from being called a whore.

“I-I’m not scared! And I smell just fine!”

“Well then, go on ahead. No point standing around here.” Rantaro sighs deeply and starts leading the group forward once again. They all just watch as he makes his way across the room towards the entrance.

“Ah, yeah…” Shuichi is the next one to step forward after him, even though he’s practically hidden himself away behind Kaede this entire time.

“No need to worry. It looks a bit dangerous, but we’re all Ultimates here! As long as we all work together, everything will work out just fine!” Kaede turns and addresses them all with that confident, assertive presence again. Her blinding optimism to almost too bright to look at. Monokuma was right, when she falls it’s certainly not going be fun.

“Y-yeah…you’re right.” Shuichi looks over his shoulder and gives her a weak and wobbly smile.

“That’s exactly what I was gonna say! We’re really on the same wavelength, Kaede! Gimme a hug!” Kaito grins brightly. Blind optimists attract one another it seems. I think those two would be too much together.

“Um…no.” Rejection. He can hardly hold back his laughter.

“Typical degenerate behaviour! You were trying to trick her into pressing her boobs against you!” Tenko yells although he’s beginning to get the feeling that she might just be projecting. Hasn’t she been the one clinging onto Himiko this whole time.

“An underground passage that has not been used in some time could be quite dangerous. But if everyone wishes to proceed…then I will do my best to support that decision.” Despite Kirumi’s statement, it’s clear she isn’t happy with it. It is pretty old. Maybe it will just collapse on them.

“Even if this is a trap…all we need to do is fight and struggle our way out of it. It’ll be dangerous, of course… But it’s better than rotting away here.” As dark as it is, Ryoma’s right. He’d much rather die trying to escape this place and destroy Monokuma than resigning himself to living here for his whole life.

“It’s quite dusty in here. Prolonged exposure to this polluted air may be detrimental to ones health.”

“Whaaat? Polluted air bothers you? But you don’t even breath air, right?” With Angie’s unchanging attitude, it’s hard to tell if she’s genuinely shocked or just acting.

“W-well, that is… While it’s true that I do not breathe, I also do not like polluted air any more than you do.” Poor Keebo, getting attacked from all sides. And yet Kokichi is the one he calls robophobic.

“I see, you have a function for sensing poisonous gases! Well then, lead the way!” Kokichi points towards the entrance to the tunnel where Rantaro and Shuichi are waiting.

“N-no! I don’t have that function! Do I look like a canary to you?” Would it be rude if he said yes? Does he really care at this point?

“Whaaat, you don’t? Then you’re even more useless than a canary!” If poisonous gases aren’t going to hurt him then why not at least give him the feature. It could have helped them right now…

“Grgh!”

“You’re too weak, Keebo! Lemme remodel you and I’ll make you the strongest robot ever! First I’ll soup up your crotch plate by installing a nice, thick one, just how I like it! Hah-hahaha!” Miu cackles, moving closer to Keebo to try and grab a hold of Keebo’s arm as he casually dodges out of the way. At this rate Keebo will grow some real balls and not just metaphorical ones.

Up ahead, Rantaro sighs as he finally steps forward into the tunnel with Kaede and Shuichi hot on his tail. The others don’t hesitate to follow behind, with Miu and Keebo bringing up the rear. Unfortunately, that means Kokichi is stuck following behind Kaede and Kaito, getting stuck listening to their conversation as he walks.

“What’s up? You wanna give me that hug after all?” Kaito chuckles, apparently still not getting the message. Some people really don’t get it.

“No, not really…” Kaede she smiles awkwardly, still sticking close to Shuichi’s side. She might as well be clinging to Shuichi's arm like Tenko and Himiko right now. 

“Hey, you don’t gotta hold back! We’re two of a kind. Y’know?!” Kaito grins completely ignorantly.

“Hey, you two, quit flirting. Can’t you read the air?” Kokichi sighs, throwing his head back to look at the ceiling as he drags his feet. If he’s stuck listening to this he might go ahead and end himself right here. Goodbye cruel world. 

“W-We’re not flirting!” A slight pink blush brushes over his cheeks as he turns his head away from Kaede. So that's a yes then.

“…You guys are annoying.” Maki hisses from behind him, clearly just as tired about it as him.

Thankfully for both of them, they’re spared from having to deal with any more of their interactions as the dark and damp tunnel suddenly morphs into something different.

“What is this…?” Shuichi mutters, coming to a stop and letting Kaede overtake him.

They all just stand there, dumbfounded as they look at some kind of strange obstacle course lays in front of them. This was definitely a trap then. Not that that should surprise any of them at this point.

“W-what even –” Kaito whispers under his breath, looking at the strange mechanical nightmare awaiting them.

“What are we supposed to do?” Tsumugi frowns, looking across the area ahead of them.

“We can’t give up, we need to push on regardless!” Kaede turns around and addresses them, forcing a calm and confident façade. Then, before anyone can say anything else, she turns back around and steps towards the new danger awaiting them.

He admires her bravery if nothing else.

That bravery isn’t enough to get them through this though.

He has no idea what even hit them. It was complete madness.

Chaos.

Utter despair.

Who would even make something like that? How much time effort and money was wasted on it?

When he finally comes too again, his head is ringing painfully. Everything aches and stings with a thick dizziness clouding his mind. For a few seconds he just has to lie there on the ground, looking up at the ceiling.

One second, he’d been running through that course, the next he’d been knocked back by and explosion. That would explain the ringing and aching going through his body. Now if only he could get rid of this bloody ringing…

Slowly, he manages to regain the will to sit up off of the cold, dirty floor. Everyone else is in a varying state of consciousness and fitness, scattered throughout the room. He doesn’t even remember how he got here… Did someone carry him back here?

“Geez, this is quite the pity party you sadsacks are throwing for yourselves!” Monokuma’s cackling instantly makes his mood about a thousand times worse.

“M-Monokuma” Kaede is pressing one hand against the side of her head, as if trying to anchor herself to this point.

“Rise and shine, ursine.” And things got even worse.

“Wow, you all look exhausted. Poor things, I feel sorry for you.” Monophanie whimpers, as if she actually cares about them in the slightest.

“Sheesh, this place is filthy. It’s murder on my cashmere skin.” Her red brethren moans, brushing off his ‘fur’ although he’s fairly sure they’re all just made of metal.

“I bet Monodam is feelin’ lucky right now! His body is already a worthless piece of junk!”

“Why don’tcha respond to him Monodam? It’ll liven things up a little, y’know?” Yet again the Monokubs are spouting nonsense amongst themselves.

“Tch… So you crawled outta your holes. I guess you finally noticed what we were up to.” Kaito growls, scowling at each of the robot bears in turn. He’s resting against Shuichi who’s practically the only thing that is keeping him from falling over. 

“…Noticed? I’ve known for a while that you guys would botch whatever escaped plan you had.” He waves a paw, brushing them aside. 

“What?” Kaede looks taken aback for some reason.

“Y-Yeah, I also pretty much knew too…” The red bear stutters only to get glared at by the other cubs.

“…That’s a lie.”

“If you knew all along then this was just a trap?” Maki addresses Monokuma directly.

“Then there was no exit! You tricked us!” Although Tenko’s assertion could be completely right, he has a feeling it isn’t as simple as that. No, if there was nothing there, they wouldn’t waste all these resources on protecting it.

“…No, there’s an exit.” Monophanie keeps up her sickly-sweet voice and attitude.

“I think you guys’ll manage to reach it if you all work together!” If the red bear is trying to encourage him then nothing good can come of it. Nothing good will come of following their advice.

“Yeah, there’s nothing you sixteen Ultimates can’t accomplish if you work together!” She cheers as if that’ll convince them somehow.

“Puhuhu. And if at first you don’t succeed…try, try again. Try as many times as you want until you accept reality! Ah-hahaha!” Monokuma and the Monokubs laugh as they all disappear once again into god knows where.

“Nyeeeh, so we can escape if we work hard enough…?” Himiko groans, looking more tired than ever before.

“No way, you little moron! They’d be freakin’ out if we could actually reach it.” Miu snaps at Himiko, her clothes are covered in dirt and are creased but she looks fine otherwise.

“That’s probably why they let us try. They wanted us to try the underground passage, so we’d learn that escape is impossible.” He’s inclined to agree with Ryoma. That’s why they hadn’t tried to stop them before or now.

“Instead of blocking off every exit completely, they let us have that little bit of hope… They want us to be desperate to go home. Corner us mentally.” Rantaro seems to be thinking out loud more than anything else.

As much as it sucks, he's impressed. It's a smart move on Monokuma's part. You can physically hurt someone as much as you want but nothing will beat psychological damage. Much more effective and long lasting. 

“That’s just rotten…” Tsumugi sighs in defeat. She looks completely broken. Most of them do.

“Yeah, but we can’t just give up… Right, you guys? I mean, we’ve only failed once, y’know. We can’t give up this early, right?” Kaede keeps up her head up, despite the clear weariness and dizziness playing across her face. She even smiles. 

“But…isn’t getting out of here impossible?” Himiko sighs, looking down at the floor.

“No, it’s not. It may take one more try or a lot more tries, but it’s not impossible. Forget about Monokuma. It doesn’t matter what he says to us. I don’t wanna lose to him! And I don’t want any of you to lose either! I refuse to lose to someone who would do these terrible things to us!” Her passion overflows as the pleads with them. It feels...genuine. But that doesn't really mean anything in this situation. 

“Kaede…” Shuichi mumbles, his eyes brimming with admiration. God, he feels like gagging. Someone needs to get them a room. 

“So, let’s all work hard to escape this place together! And once we get out of here and make it to the outside world…why don’t we all stay friends?” The sentiment might be kind of…naïve but maybe that’s what all these people need to hear right now. Something dumb and cheesy to motivate them. 

“F-friends?” Gonta’s eyes practically well up with tears of joy.

“Yeah… after going through an experience like this, I think we’d all be the best of friends. I mean, it’s not every day you get to meet other Ultimates…so what do you say?”

“Hmph…that might not be bad.” An actual smile reaches Ryoma’s lips along with a warmth in his eyes that Kokichi hadn’t expected to see. Melting the murders icy heart. 

“Yeah. That’s a great idea.” Tsumugi’s face is bright despite the underlying layer of weariness.

“Then we’ve all got a reason to escape this place, no matter what.” Kirumi is as stoic as ever but even she has melted a little, leaving her warmth to shine through.

“My boy is ready! You can tell by how outta control my pit sweat is!” And then the moment is ruined by Tenko.

“E-Everyone!” Kaede almost looks like she could cry, although he’s not sure if it’s from relief, joy or hope.

“Isn’t it premature to say what we’ll do after we escape? Assumptions are all but useless.” And then Keebo goes and ruins the mood too. These two…

“Geez, you’re so clueless… Why am I not surprised that a robot can’t read the air?” He shakes his head slowly.

“Robots can too read the air! Thanks to innovations in pollutant-detecting technology, I –”

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter if Monokuma says it’s impossible! We’ll show him what we can do!” Kaito doesn’t even let Keebo finish before butting in.

“Yeah! You’re right!” Kaede nods her head firmly, flashing a smile at Kaito. They better not start flirting again. He’d probably vomit. To much near vomiting for one day. 

“It seems like a pain…but I guess I’ll try.” Somehow, even Himiko seems to have brightened up. At least as bright as someone as gloomy as her can get.

“Yeah, lets work together! We messed up last time, but I’m sure it’ll go well this time!” Absolutely nothing has changed since the last time they tried but even so, they’re not going to give up. Who is he to pop their bubbles? After all, he can read the room – unlike some people.

“I’m sure we’ll be just fine. A divine wind will blow through and lift us to victory.”

“Aah, humanity is truly wonderful. The way you all confront adversity is beautiful.”

Confronting adversity. That’s one way to put it. Although it doesn’t seem like they’re doing much confronting. Confronting and running into a brick wall, whats the difference really? 

Once again, they all charge head on into the tunnel. Their hopes are even higher than before. Their confidence even higher. But that only means it’s farther for them to fall.

They keep charging straight at the challenges ahead. Charging ahead and ahead. Throwing themselves at every obstacle. He – no, they all – keep throwing themselves at everything until they are ready collapse. He keeps on going until he can’t go any further. Until he finds himself falling down a darkened pit, only to fall into the darkness of unconsciousness once again.

“I-I see…I-I lost consciousness again…” Kaede sighs, as if even her confidence is staring to wear down.

They’ve only tried twice. Only two attempts. There’s no way they’re going to give up yet. This is exactly what Monokuma wants. He wants them to give up completely. To accept his stupid game.

“Wh-what the –? And I was lookin’ forward to a happy ending!” Miu groans quietly. He’d been expecting something more energetic. More emotional.

“Not yet! We’re just getting started!” He puts his foot down. It would be pathetic if they just gave up right now.

“O-Of course! This will be…a piece of cake!” Tenko wipes away the sweat on her forehead with the back of her arm.

“Gonta gonna escape. Become friends with everyone. Gentlemen…never give up!”

“Th-this time! This time…we’ll reach the exit!” Her voice falters ever so slightly. So slightly that it’s almost unnoticeable.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

He doesn’t know how many times. He’s lost track. There are too many to even count.

He watches helplessly as people fall around him.

He watches as they all collapse again and again and again.

He finds himself getting knocked down again and again and again.

Every time the tunnel gets the better of them

Bit by bit, ever so slowly, it wears down them all down.

As they try to make their way through it he watches everyone start to struggle. Watches Kirumi supporting Shuichi as he limps on his twisted ankle. He watches as tears start to streak down Tenko’s face. As Kaito hobbles down the tunnel on weak legs. As they each collapse one by one.

“Kokichi okay?” Gonta holds a hand out towards him as he crouches down on the ground, head between his knees.

“Never better.” He smirks as he raises his head in one smooth motion. No matter how hard he tries to force a smile onto his lips, it never quite reaches his eyes. 

Even so, he takes Gonta’s hand and lets the larger boy pull him up with ease. Not that it’s a challenge for him. As he pulls him up, Kokichi notices a small spot of bright pink blood staining the edge of his jacket.

“Are you okay?” He arches his eyebrows and nods at the boys side.

“Oh.” Gonta’s eyebrows knit together until he notices the spot on his side, “This? Gonta fine. No worry about Gonta.” He smiles with ease, not even giving the injury a second thought. So Kokichi he worries about, but not his own injury. That's completely healthy. 

“Are you ready to get going again?” Kirumi walks over to them, not showing any sign of exhaustion. It’s almost as if she’s a superhuman after going through all those attempts without any kind of injury.

“Yes!” Gonta drops his hand down to his side to cover the slight injury. Regardless of how swift the movement is, Kirumi’s eyes double take for a second before she allows herself to turn and walk back to the rest of the group.

“Let’s go, Gonta.” He takes a deep breath in and pats Gonta’s arm as they all head off into the tunnel once again.

How much longer can they even take this? As he looks across at the faces of the other Ultimates he can feel the weight of their failures. The weight of every loss. Those pains and despairs etched into the darkness of their faces. Even Angie’s eyes seem hollowed out and lifeless compared to before they’d started all this.

Regardless of Kaede’s attempts, they’re not going to last much longer. Eventually they’ll succumb to their injuries – both mental and physical. Nothing she says is going to stop that. Every time she calls for them to try again he feels another small chuck of his perseverance being chipped away.

“Failed…again.” Gonta sighs from deep inside his soul.

“Damn it…!” Kaito’s growl reverberates through the empty room.

“I can’t…go on…” Tsumugi is bent over, her fingers scratching at the ground underneath them. Blood streaks across the floor everywhere her fingers touch. 

“Wait, we can’t give up. This time, we’ll –”

“Knock it off already.” He snaps at Kaede, not even wanting to hear her finish that sentence.

No more.

No more.

NO MORE.

Can’t she see? Isn’t she supposed to be supporting everyone? How hasn’t she realised what this is doing to everyone? They’re completely broken and shattered. No matter how much they push themselves, they’ll never be able to do anything in this state. They’d all collapse before they ever reached their goal. There's a time to stop and rest, why can't she see that? 

“Huh?” She frowns like she somehow hasn’t felt what they all feel. Like she’s somehow above the desperation and despair that is welling through the rest of them.

“You’re free to keep trying on your own, but forcing us to join you is basically torture.” The torturous feeling of having his very will broken down. She’s just driving them further into Monokuma’s plan. Driving them into his twisted game. 

“T-Torture.”

“You know what really hurts? Being denied the right to give up in an impossible situation… You won’t let us give up and no matter what we say, you have the moral high ground. That...doesn’t sound like torture to you? When you say we can’t give up, you’re not inspiring us – you’re strong arming us!”

He looks around at everyone’s broken faces. None of them dare meet Kaede or Kokichi’s eyes. None of them are willing to admit it. Because admitting it might as well be saying they’re weaker. Less driven. More broken.

“I-I didn’t mean it like that…” Pain writhes across her face, although he struggles to feel pity for the girl. She should know what she's doing. He thought she was smarter than this. 

“Hey, degenerate! Quit being so selfish!” Tenko storms towards him, the faint light of the room still catching on the tear streaks that mar her cheeks. Of course he's the one they charge at. 

“I-I’m not being selfish… The others feel the same way, too…” He takes a deep breath in. Even if they don’t want to admit it, someone has to put this to an end before it goes too far.

“What? E-Everyone…?” Sure enough, a sea of lost and pained faces are there to greet her. Faces of everyone her passion has driven to the brink.

“P-please wait! We…no can give up!” Gonta scrambles forward, trying his best to rally everyone. Maybe it’d be less confusing if he hadn’t noticed the pained tension in his face that he let slip whenever no one was looking.

“You guys! Are you really okay with not getting out of this place?!” Desperation leaks into Kaito’s voice, although he’s pointing his frustration in the wrong direction – at least from where he’s standing.

“We shouldn’t have to push ourselves… Let’s just find another way out, okay?” He tries his best to stand up straight and put on a bright face. To push down the frustration as deep as possible.

“What?!” Kaede rounds on him in one slick movement.

“…You’re talking about the killing game, aren’t you?” Rantaro jumps to the conclusion suddenly without any prompting from him.

“Oh, so you’re gonna interpret it like that, huh?” Whatever they want to believe. He couldn’t care less what these people think. They can play Monokuma’s game for all they like. What they do is up to them but there’s no way they’re all dragging him down with them. Let them all kill each other like mad men. After all, he's going to be the one to win this game. 

“W-what are you saying? There’s no way we can do the killing game!” Tenko, ever the adamant defender, jumps in like clockwork.

“Nee-heehee… Calm down. Want some bubble gum? You can blow pretty big bubbles with it.” He forces a laugh and a smile. Is it bad that he gets so much satisfaction from seeing the anger bubbling up within her? Probably…

“Oh-hoho… Looks like this little degenerate wants his head smashed into the ground.” She can barely hold herself back from launching right at him. By now he should have learnt to not rile up people that could knock him out – or even kill him – without any issue. Too bad he's not going to learn any time soon. 

“S-Stop, guys, we shouldn’t be fighting…” Shuichi jumps in although his soft and unsteady voice does little to ease the situation.

“Geez… We fell apart pretty quickly for a group that decided to be friends and work together.” Ryoma shakes his head as he turns his back on the group, hands in his pockets. With every movement, the chain around his neck drags across the ground. The sound grating against his ears.

“I’m sorry…this is my fault. I’m so sorry…” Kaede looks down at her feet, her hands pulling at her vest and tears threatening to fall.

“No, Kaede…” Shuichi moves to take her hands but stops himself at the last minute as Kaito jumps forward to her defense.

“I-Idiot! What’re you apologising for?! It’s not you’re fault at all!”

“…Really? I think it is Kaede’s fault.” Maki watches Kaede with cold and hardened eyes. This is how it feels to have someone on your side, huh? It’s surprisingly nice. The supreme leader and child care giver. Now that's a team. 

“H-huh, why?” Kaito leans back ever so slightly, having been knocked off balance.

_DING-DONG-DING-DONG_

None of them move as the loud ringing of the school bell and the obnoxious announcement from the Monokubs plays loudly around them. A nighttime announcement? It’s already 10pm?! How long had they been throwing themselves at this brick wall? It can’t have been much past midday when they’d first made their way over here. How many hours of failure have they been subjected to? And she thinks they can keep going. 

“Nighttime, huh? Welp, no sense in pushing our luck. We should probably just get a fresh start tomorrow.” Rantaro says it like they’re giving up. As if no one here needs to rest and recover.

“Fresh start?” Angie cocks her head to one side. Light has started to glisten in her eyes again at the prospect of getting out of this dark, freezing place. It’s only going to get colder and colder as it gets later and later. How much colder has it already gotten compared to when they first started?

“We’ve each been assigned a dorm room in the dormitory. Perhaps we should rest there?” Kirumi speaks as calmly as ever.

“Heeeee! We’re gonna rest there?!” Miu trembles and shakes, her arms wrapping around her body and she bites her lower lip.

“The rooms aren’t that bad. Much better than my prison cell, that’s for sure.”

It doesn’t seem like they skipped out on funding when making that dorm building, even if he didn’t actually go into it. And even if they were made as cheaply as possible, would that even matter? He’s slept in worse places and in worse situations. They all really need the rest so anywhere would be better than continuing to push themselves. As long as there's a roof over his head then he's fine. 

“But…it makes me nervous to think that we’ll be staying the night at this creepy school.” Tsumugi shivers, lost in her own head.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do but suck it up! So what’s our plan for tomorrow? Since the dining hall opens at 8 a.m., how about we meet there at that time?” He breaths out loudly, relieved to have an end in sight. Relieved to have something to look forward to after this torture.

“Sure, I think that’ll work. I’m okay with that.” Rantaro smiles that same hollow smile as always.

“Can we go to our rooms already?” Maki sighs, still keeping to herself at the edge of the room. Is she slowly getting closer to the ladder or is he imagining that?

“Yes, we should get as much rest as we can and regain our strength.” Kirumi nods along with everyone else. For the first time since arriving here she seems to actually be agreeing with what she is saying instead of just going along with it.

“Nyeeeh…I dunno if I can go pee by myself in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll come with you! If you don’t mind, that is! Just lemme know!” Yeah, she’s definitely projecting about this degenerate male stuff.

“Hey, guys? Just…as a warning… We shouldn’t let our guards down. We’ll be easy targets at night.” Without any warning, Rantaro’s voice drops into a sinister whisper. At least someone isn’t delusional. There’s no way that absolutely no one here is considering it. He saw all their faces before. And now they’ve been pushed to the breaking point.

“C-Cuz of killing game, you mean?” Gonta loosens his stance as then his arm covering his wound moves even closer to his side.

“I see no need to worry about something as illogical as murder taking place here.” _Not everyone is based in reality though_ …he thinks to himself as Keebo speaks. Someone’s really got to teach this boy (robot?) about the real world some time.

“I know, I know. Just a warning.” Rantaro’s gaze softens ever so slightly.

And then, just like how they’d arrived all those hours ago, they all leave. As they leave, they each drag their injured and worn-out bodies with them. Silently hobbling out into the night.


	3. Night Creepers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi takes advantage of the night to scope out the school and Monokuma puts together a motive.

Relief washes over him as he steps out of the boiler room and out underneath the stars. They look so bright from out here. Just another night sky. Probably the only familiar part of this entire place. Seeing the night sky would usually bring him a sense of comfort, but no matter where he looks above him, those bars are there to remind him of the situation.

None of them dare speak as they all stumble out down the path back towards the dormitory building. Bit by bit, their numbers whittle down as people break off of the group to go their own ways. He doesn’t even bother to count how many people are still with them as Maki pushes open the door, not even bothering to hold it open for the rest of them. It's not like there's any rule keeping them in the dorms after the announcement anyway. 

The room within isn’t what he’d expected. It's been set up with two floors forming a circle and bedroom doors for each of them coming off. Each one has a cute little pixel drawing of the owner right above it. He finds himself climbing up the metal stairs on the boy’s half of the circle and quietly opening the door to his own room. Of course, he would get the room right at the back of the second floor. His muscles scream at him as he finds his way into the room. Couldn't they install a elevator or something?

The very first thing he does as soon as he enters the room is to flop down on the bed, letting the soft material smother him. The soft and silky material wraps around him, chaining him down. Trapping him in its the comfy prison. Part of him wants to just stay laying here forever…unfortunately there is still work to be done. He lets out a sigh from deep in his soul.

Time to get to work then.

He forces himself back onto his feet and tries to get a proper look at his new 'home'. It’s just so…empty… A complete blank slate - but not in a good way. Other than that, it’s much nicer than he’d been expecting. Everything is so high quality. So clean. So polished. The opposite of everything he'd imagined when he first woke up here. There aren't even any vines or plants breaking through the walls or floor. Besides the expected things like a wardrobe, bed and desk, they’ve even given him an armchair and TV.

A TV…

Keeping his expectations low, he walks over to the TV and presses the power button curiously. Much to his surprise, it flickers on at once. And then, darkness. No channels or anything. He hadn't exactly been expecting any news channels but there's not even reruns of old shows. As he runs his hand down the side of the TV he can feel the DVD port built into the side. Ughhhh! The entertainment is really lacking here. They better at least have DVD's here to use...

Turning away from the TV, he returns to searching the room. However, no matter how hard he looks, there’s nothing interesting at all. The only things in the closet are countless copies of exactly the same clothes he’s wearing right now. Even the desk draws only have a few stacks of papers and pens tucked away. Still nothing that gives any clues about all this. 

In fact, the only slightly useful thing in the room is the shiny key sitting on the coffee table in the middle of the room. A room key? He finally reaches over and picks it up, feeling the cold metal in his hand. The second his hand grips onto the key, a loud and obnoxious noise appears behind him. _Please no_ …

“Bingo! That is, in fact, your key!” The blue bear yells at him. Now they’re invading their personal space too. There’s nowhere he’s safe apparently… Maybe he can find a way to make his room Monokuma/Monokub proof – he’ll have to talk to Miu about that some time.

“You probably don’t have anything worth stealin’ in here…but you should still lock your door when you leave.” Sure, locking it when he leaves is important but the first thing that comes to mind is locking it when he’s inside the room. Especially with the nudge Monokuma just gave them. “Alright, now it’s time to give you a special hint. If ya steal someone’s key, you can sneak into their room and kill ‘em easily!”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just pick the locks?” He hums and cocks his head to one side. It's not like they even tried to stop him from picking the lock earlier. Considering what they seem to know about everyone here they must be prepared for his 'skill set' at the very least. 

“Uhhhh…we didn’t think about that…” The robot bear somehow manages to actually look taken aback. Well, that gives him the answer he was looking for…

“So the locks can be picked then.” He smirks, letting his face darken over, “Thanks for the tip off.” If everyone here is an ultimate, who knows who else can pick locks. Instantly, Rantaro flashes in his mind. Who’s to tell what his talent is. If he’s keeping it a secret it can’t be good.

Much to Kokichi’s relief, the bear vanishes without an annoying retort. Just like all the other times, he vanishes into nothing without so much as a goodbye. It’s still not comforting that they can just show up in the room whenever they want. Maybe he’ll have to sleep with a knife under his pillow after all. How useful would a knife be against these bears anyway? That could be another thing for him to try out sometime. 

“Goodbye to you too.” He yells up at the ceiling at wherever he hopes the secret camera’s watching them are. He’s too tired to even care that he must look like an idiot right now – although when has he ever cared really.

Against everything in his body, he reaches over and turns off the TV, preparing to leave the room. There’ll be time for rest when he has sorted all this out. Besides, they’re meeting at 8am which leaves him plenty of time to rest.

With the cool key pressed into his hand, he walks up to the door and steps out into the entrance way. Although the bear was right that he doesn’t have anything worthwhile stealing, he turns around and locks the door behind him anyway. Better safe than sorry…

As he slips out of the dorm building, he finds a silent empty evening laid out before him. After seeing everyone out and about as they’d headed back to the dorms, he’d assumed everyone would still be around. Instead, silence ricochets around the desolate plain. Did they all already go back to their rooms? Well, that makes things easier for him at least.

Despite the apparent emptiness, he keeps an eye out as he creeps down the pathway towards the school building. No one appears. No sounds. No shadows. No movements anywhere. Not even the bushes and leaves seem to be moving. It seems they really have gone to their rooms. No one appears even as he climbs up the steps to the school building and pulls open the loud and heavy front door.

Without any source of light, the corridor looks about a billion times creepier. The faint shadows of the vines covering the windows are splayed out across the cracked and grassy floor. Now he thinks about it, that classroom he woke up in had an electronic looking blackboard but there’s no electricity for lights in the corridors? Bit of an oversight if you ask him.

Regardless, he finds himself quietly moving through the school, looking for anything that could be of use. Before anything else, he heads towards the set of stairs that lead down to the basement. If his time spent watching horror movies has taught him anything, it’s that basements are where all the creepy and useful stuff is kept. So, obviously that’s where he’ll go first. It's the only choice. 

If he thought the first-floor corridor was dark, the basement is the pit of hell itself. The entire place is completely devoid of light so you can't even see your hand in front of your face. Now he wishes he’d thought to bring a flashlight with him…if there even is one around here. He certainly hasn't seen one so far. Without any other option, he shuffles down the hallway with one hand pressed against the wall. As his hand brushes against the wall, he feels it crumble away under his touch. He can feel the dust and broken pieces stick to his skin as he makes his way along.

It’s only as he steps through the nearest door that he remembers the Monopad still sat there in his pocket. At least no one was around to see him stumbling around like an idiot in the darkness. 

Holding back the faint blush on his cheeks, he’s hit with yet more stale and warm air. The sudden change in light forces him to cover his eyes slightly as he steps over the threshold into yet another rundown room. Is it some kind of game room? _Now you’re talking_ …

Curiously, he skips over to the nearest arcade machine and randomly presses the buttons. But nothing. The screen stays utterly black and destroyed. Against his better judgment, he finds his spirits falling ever so slightly. Of course, they weren’t going to work… Just like the rest of the school, this place has been completely overtaken by nature. He doubts anything in here has worked for years. Even so, he can feel the knot of disappointment tightening in his chest.

He doesn’t even bother going over to check on the other machines and instead he goes straight over to the door at the back of the classroom. The only things these’ll be useful for is as scrap parts. No matter how messed up they might be from exposure, he’s sure Miu could probably do something with them at the very least. He holds the thought tightly in his mind as he slides open the back door in the hopes of something slightly more useful than the carcasses of long dead game consoles.

He’s not even sure how long he spends in the basement, flicking through the countless DVD’s stacked on the shelves. He’s not even sure exactly what he’s looking for at this point. If they’ve really been sent here to kill each other what’s even the point of all of this mindless entertainment anyway. Even so, he finds himself tucking a few random DVD's in his pocket for his room. 

Once he's certain he's seen all the useless stuff in the room, he moves over to the back of the room and tries to open the door. But before he can even fit more than an arm through it sticks. Frowning, he pulls on the handle again but nothing. No matter how hard he tries to force open the door it refuses to budge. There must be some kind of vine or rust keeping it from opening any further...

Reluctantly, he closes the door again and leaves through the game room door and pulls out his Monopad to guide him back down the corridor. With the map out, he can see the library beside him but he completely walks past the door and down the corridor. Crouching down with the light he examines the AV room door only to find it free from any kid of debris. It's like it simply up and stuck all on it's own. 

He stands back up with a sigh and heads towards the library door behind him. It might not be the door he'd been planning to go through but, hey, it's closer than the other one now. Thankfully, it slides open with ease. In fact, easier than a normal door...

Stepping through into the library he's overwhelmed by yet another wave of musty air. Someone should really air out these basement rooms one of these days. Really... He can't see how anyone could stay and read in a library like this. 

But despite that, he finds himself sat cross-legged on the library floor for god knows how long. Stuck reading countless spines for any kind of clue. Even the smallest thing. There are more books here than they even have space for in the library so they've been stacked all over the floor and the tops of the bookshelves. They’re scattered everywhere, as far as the eye can see. Even with the ladder, lots of the books are completely out of his reach without him actually climbing on top of the shelf itself.

However, it's not worthwhile in the slightest, with nothing new to see amongst the endless sea of book titles. The numbness of his tired mind and body doesn't help the situation. Without knowing what he's even looking for it's a pointless endeavour. Normally he would pride himself on his ability to concentrate on stuff like this but right now he feels like bashing his head in on the floor in front of him. More mindless torture. Apparently he hadn't already had enough of that earlier tonight. 

With nothing to show for his time he finally lets himself leave the softly lit library to venture back out into the darkened basement. Talk about a waste of time. He can’t even remember a single book or DVD title, not that that information would be helpful anyway.

Dejected, he makes his way back up to the first floor in the faint Monopad light. Even after all the time he stayed down there, darkness still hovers over the entire corridor, almost as if no time has passed at all. It might not be as dark as the basement, but he keeps his Monopad open anyway to guide his way through the surprisingly linear space. He’d seen the lack of classrooms on the map but it seems much emptier as he walks through in person.

He silently checks every room, sticking his head through the doorways as a once over. He frowns slightly as he opens the girl’s bathroom door (What? He might as well be thorough) only to find the mirrors completely shattered into nothing. Who the hell did that? The Monokubs?

He’s actually surprised when he finally reaches a locked door in the form of what seems to be the music room as he arrives on the next floor. Why even bother locking doors at this point? It seems like everything else has been completely open for them to explore. The only reason would be because this room is more important right... He can hope at the very least. 

Without any other option, he pulls out his lock pick and kneels down in front of the lock. He doesn’t even get the pick into the lock before his peaceful solitude is rudely torn to pieces. Something he's going to have to get used to that it seems. 

“Whatcha doin’?” Monokuma’s sly voice coos at him. The small black and white form is stood right beside him, leaning over to watch Kokichi’s every move.

“Hmmm, I dunno. Playing piano?” He shrugs his shoulders but doesn’t bother taking the pick out of the lock. His skin prickles under the strange robot bears eyes but he brushes it off casually.

“Maybe you should get some tips from Kaede because I think you’re doing it all wrong.” He innocently tilts his head to one side, rubbing his chin with his paw.

“Reallyyyyy?” He sticks out his bottom lip but keeps on working on the lock.

“You do know what’ll happen if you break the rules right?” A sudden seriousness descends over Monokuma. Something deep and predatorial rising up form within him. Now he shows his true colours…the façade has fallen.

“Wellllll, if you read the rules I think you’ll find there’s nothing against lock picking. I even checked with your little blue robot friend.”

“He’s my cub.” He snarls, letting his sharp white teeth shine in the darkened area.

“Cub, friend, subordinate – same thing. Now I think about it, where are they now? Don’t you usually send them to do this kinda stuff for ya?”

“It’s their nap time. After all, growing kids need their sleep, don’t they? Is that why you’re so short?” Monokuma sneers, forcing a laugh.

“I still don’t hear any reason I should stop.”

“I don’t think you read those rules closely enough.” Monokuma suddenly steps in front of him in a weak attempt to try and stop him. His head doesn’t even reach the lock. “After all, I’m fairly sure you’re forgetting 12.”

Rule 12? He hasn’t exactly memorised all the rules but none of them stand out to him?

“With minimal restrictions, you are free to explore the campus at your discretion.” Monokuma clears his throat and speaks with a completely different – almost narrator-esque voice. “With MINIMAL RESTRICTIONS! This is a minimal restriction.” His face turns bright red as he begins yelling like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

“Huh? Realllllly? Then why not just make the lock unpickable, huh?” He finally leans back from the lock, putting more space between him and Monokuma.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to stop any lock picking that might happen when the room is finally ready.”

“Finally ready? You haven’t finished making this room then?” It seems strange to suddenly have an unfinished room. They must have had loads of time to get this place ready before they kidnapped all of them. Besides, how much work does it take to make a music room of all things?

“This room is special and my cubs have taken a little longer than I expected to get it ready?”

“Special? Isn’t it just a music room?”

“Just a music room! _Just_ a music room! This is our very own, brand new ultimate lab.” Monokuma screams, his face getting redder and redder with every passing second. If this has something to do with Ultimates would that make this room related to Kaede somehow? It's not like it could relate to anyone else with the Piano design on the door. 

“What’s an Ultimate Lab?”

“I’m glad you asked. There are labs for everyone where you’ll be able to keep working on your talents while you’re here.” His first thought is of his own lab. How the hell would they make a lab for him to work on his talent? And why?

“If they’re so important why haven’t I seen any others yet?” He hasn’t exactly explored much of this place but there should apparently be sixteen of them around here and yet he hasn’t seen a single other one yet. It's not _that_ big of an area. 

“I already told you, they’re not ready yet. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when they’re ready though, puhuhuhu.” It seems the Monokubs definitely learnt a lot from Monokuma, because he simply vanishes without another word.

He’s left behind with the lock pick in hand, stuck in front of the door. Reluctantly, he sticks the lock pick back into his pocket. Rules, rules, rules. God this sucks! Rules are there to be broken but with those Exisals around, it’s not worth the risk. He might have said the Monokubs are ‘sleeping’ but that doesn’t really mean much. At the drop of the hat they'll be on him and tearing him to pieces.

Disappointed and frustrated, he pushes on with his exploration, peering into each of the classrooms. None of them seem any different to one another though. Just more of the same. More eerie blackboards that are still lit up, even in the dead of the night. More empty desks in a long-abandoned classroom.

With no new leads upstairs, he finds himself back down on the first floor, dejected. His first port of call is the school shop, although he has no idea why they’d even need a shop. He didn’t realise they even had money here. Any money he normally kept in his pockets was gone when he woke up here - not that he ever had more than a few coins at any one time.

There’s no shop keeper unless you count the two giraffes behind the counter as shop keepers which he personally doesn’t. In fact, there’s not much in the shop at all. It's not even worth shop lifting. Despite saying that, he pockets a pack of bubble gum on the side and slips out of the room. No robot bears come to stop him so he simply walks away, popping the a piece of gum in his mouth.

The warehouse, on the other hand is a completely different story. The second he steps in, he’s overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff lining the shelves. It’s ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Everything he could possibly imagine seems to be in the room. All kinds of stuff that don’t seem particularly useful for a so-called ‘killing game’. Javelins, he can understand, but hurdles. This better not be Monokuma’s way of warning them he’s going to force them to exercise. Running is one thing but there’s no way he’s going to be doing hurdles in the courtyard with these other idiots.

Upon seeing the sheer variety of stuff, the cogs in his brain start turning. Of course Monokuma (or whoever made him) wouldn’t leave anything here that could directly be used to escape this place but with so many products there’s no way they could have though of every possibility. It’ll just take a little more…creativity.

Humming to himself, he wanders down the aisles and examines all the different contents. As he walks, he grabs a stack of bed sheets and a light dumbbell. Sure, Monokuma might be watching but from what he can tell, the bear is always watching. Whatever he does, he’s always going to have to do it with Monokuma watching so there’s no point in worrying about being sneaky. Instead, he walks right out of the warehouse with the stack of stuff balanced precariously in his arms. He’s half expecting Monokuma to pop up and question him but, once again, nothing appears. No Monokuma. No Monokubs. In a way, he’s almost disappointed.

Despite his heavy load, he keeps on wandering through the hallways, wanting to cover all possible ground. From what he’d seen on the map there aren’t any other rooms to see that he hasn’t already but he does remember seeing that black and white door leading off of the hallway to the gym. The chances of it being unlocked and not off limits are low but why not at least try.

Before he can even reach that door , he stops himself and his stuff down on the floor. On a completely inconspicuous and normal wall, there are three perfectly shaped dips – two of which have been filled with small wooden tags tailor made to fit. The third and central one has been left empty though. Incomplete. Well if that isn’t a bright neon sign begging for his attention then he doesn’t know what is.

Curiously, he steps towards them and lets his fingers run across the wall. There’s no doubt that these keys were specifically made for these holes. They don’t seem to be glued in at all but even touching them doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. He could probably pry them free if he tried but it wouldn’t be easy.

“Heyyyyyy! Monokumaaaaaa!” He cups his hands around his mouth and calls out as loud as he can. If Monokuma is just going to stalk him and pop up wherever he wants he might as well make the most of it. It’s not likely that Monokuma will actually tell him the truth but any answer could still prove useful.

“Did ya call for me?” Monokuma pops up as suddenly as ever, keeping up his cute and innocent mask. “I knew ya loved me really. You just couldn’t stay away!” He smiles, baring his razor sharp teeth.

“You don’t happen to know what this is, right?”

“I’m the headmaster, of course I know what that is for! Is your brain full of cotton or something?” His face stays as robotic and stiff as ever but he can hear the eye roll oozing off of his voice.

“Nee-heehee. You do, huh? So what’s it for.” He places on hand on his hip, staring down the small black and white bear.

“Hmmmm…why would I tell you?”

“Because you want to. I can see it on your face.” If he didn’t want to answer Kokichi’s question he just wouldn’t have shown up. Besides, as a fellow game lover, he knows the joy of having a challenger very well. What’s the point in a game if you’re just playing by yourself?

“You’re a tricky one, huh. Very well, I’ll tell you! This is a special gateway into a new world for you Ultimates.” He declares dramatically.

“A gateway? So I’m guessing there is a key for the gateway somewhere.” It really is starting to sound like a game. A new location for them to unlock. He had mentioned that there were rooms for each of them so he’d figured that there must be blocked off areas somewhere. Even so, it just adds to the overarching question of why?

“You betcha. Before you ask, no I’m not giving it to you now. Any good teacher knows that a reward only comes once you’ve earnt it. And so far, you’ve done nothing to earn it. Capiche?”

“I get it…a reward…” A reward for killing. So, what, every murder is just a level in his twisted game? Just a checkpoint for them to pass? That confirms that he doesn’t want any of them to graduate at the very least. He wants his game to keep on going, “A true game.” He forces a smile, ignoring the burning in his chest.

“Yup! You get it now!” His dark beady eye glisten in the moonlight. Something dark and sinister writhes just beneath the surface, “Is that all you wanted to ask me?”

“For now.” He lets the smile fall, staring straight into Monokuma.

“Well then…adios.” And then he’s gone. Gone like he was never there to begin with.

The shock of their creepy vanishing ability has very quickly worn off. It might have been normalised but that doesn’t change his interest in just how they manage it. With all this popping up they certainly make it seem easy.

Discarding all those thoughts, he grabs a hold of his stuff and hobbles out of the school. Although he knows that he should probably go right back to his rooms, his feet keep on carrying him across the grounds. It’s like his brain just turns off completely. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s simply let impulse take over as he travels but it’s probably not the best time to let that habit take over. That thought does little to stop him from finding himself at the ‘end wall’ once again.

Kokichi stares up at the night sky through the caged dome, running his hand along the perfectly smoothed wall. Whoever made Monokuma and put them in here is twisted. Twisted and evil and vicious. Someone that would try to force them all to bend to their will. Someone who thinks they can get away with trying to twist his arm. And that's why he's going to take them down. He's going to tear down this game piece by piece.

Even if he has to do it all by himself.

When he does finally drag himself back to bed, he throws all his stuff onto the desk. If Monokuma was going to try and stop him he would have tried earlier. For now he might as well get some rest before they all meet for breakfast. He probably should have grabbed an alarm clock from the warehouse while he was there.

“Hey, Monokuma?” He calls out lying on his bed to stare up at the ceiling. In the back of his mind, he wonders whether these rooms are sound proofed in anyway.

“Calling for me again? You really can’t stay away, huh?”

“You don’t happen to have an alarm clock, do you?” He doesn’t bother sitting up to try and see the robot bear that is undoubtedly stood at the foot of his bed. Now he’s lying down, his body utterly refuses to move again.

“An alarm clock? What’s so urgent to need an alarm? You planning something…?” He drawls, leaning closer to Kokichi.

“We’re having a fun group breakfast in the morning. I’m sure you already heard us talking about it.” He waves his hand casually. There’s no way the psychopath wasn’t watching them the entire time they were suffering through the torture tunnel.

“Puhuhuhu, well don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re all awake on time. Wouldn’t want any of you youngsters to miss out on your bright and fun school days.” It’s not exactly an answer but it’s the best he’s going to get from the bear. As long as he’s awake for their meeting.

“That’ll be all then. See you in the morning.” He considers throwing his pillow at the robot but quickly decides against it. If he throws the pillow, then he’s just going to have to get up off the bed to get it back. Would it even be worth it at that point? He might be petty but even he has his limits.

“You got it boss.” Then there’s the tell-tale sound of Monokuma disappearing.

Even with the bear gone, he doesn’t bother moving from his current position. He should probably get up and change into some other clothes, but he really can’t bring himself to. Now he thinks about it, there weren’t any other clothes in the wardrobe. Did they not even give him pyjama’s? Since there were bedsheets in the warehouse maybe they’re expected to find other clothes in the warehouse too.

However, at this point, all he can be bothered to do is kick off his shoes into the corner of the room and close his eyes. He’ll have to have a shower in the morning when he can actually be bothered to get up.

He’s not sure when he falls asleep but at some point, the darkness just takes over. It drags him back down into the pits he knows all too well. Back down into the depths of the night.

_From the darkness he can hear his own laboured breaths. The repetitive patter of his footsteps crashing against the concrete. Pat. Pat. Pat. Pat. Pat. The sound thumping against the inside of his head. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. His heart pounds in unison with it. As it pounds, it pumps all the adrenaline and endorphins through his body._

_Through the darkness he zips between buildings, dipping behind walls and jumping over fences to keep out of sight. It feels…freeing. No wall stopping him. No cage surrounding him. He can stare right up into the right sky and see the faint specks of flickering starlight littering the darkness._

_And then, without any warning, a dark hand reaches out towards him and covers his mouth. The darkness seeps into his mouth, utterly silencing him. Without any way to fight back, it drags him into the wall behind him. As soon as his body hits the wall, other dark hands reach out towards him and dig their nails into his exposed skin._

_He does his best to squirm out of their grip, but they give him no leeway. Their iron grip is absolute. With every attempt to break free, their grip just seems to get tighter. Panic begins rising. Choking him slowly. Strangling his attempts to protest._

_Then, the hands begin moving his body. Completely controlling him. He moves like a marionette with invisible strings, the hands merging with the darkened shadows of the night. Even as they become less and less visible, they’re no less controlling. He can still feel their icy cold grips clinging to him._

_As the hand meld with the shadows, he can feel a warm, sticky liquid seep over his hands. A dark sheen covering his hands. The harsh metallic smell assaults his nose. The feeling clings to his skin, crawling over him._

_The dark hands have completely vanished, but he doesn’t even notice at first. It takes him a few seconds to realise that he is moving himself once again. Slowly he raises his hand closer to his face, trying to get a better look at the liquid now coating his hands. As the moon peers through the clouds, it shimmers off of his hands like a blade slicing through him. The small red pearls drop off of his hands and splatter on the stone ground underfoot._

_What is happening…_

_Where did all this come from…_

_He tries his best to scrub his hands clean but no matter how much he gets off of his hands more just appears. It oozes off of the skin on his hands. Trickles over all his exposed skin._

_Somewhere in the distance he can see flashing red and blue lights but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s too transfixed on his own hands. Footsteps clatter through the alleyways, drawing closer and closer to him. Are they looking for him? He didn’t do any of this. This wasn’t him._

_The footsteps get closer and closer. With every heartbeat they draw closer. But just before they can finally reach him, a sharp noise cuts through the darkness._

Ding dong. Bing bong.

His head is still reeling, caught between dream and reality. A thick haze is covering his mind, as he tries to anchor himself down. What the hell is that noise? In the back of his mind, he remembers Monokuma saying something last night but everything is still covered in haze.

Yet another Monokubs video plays, ringing through the room. He’s too out of it to hear what they’re saying but before he knows it the monitor in the corner of his room flickers off. What the hell was that?

Rubbing his head, he sits up, ignoring the sudden light-headedness flooding over him. Still blinking away the light spots, he scans the room, looking for a clock of some kind only to come up blank. Sighing, he flops back down onto the bed. A TV but no clock? He’s definitely going to have to sort out this room later.

As much as he’d like to keep on laying there, he rolls off of the bed, forcing himself onto his feet. God, he forgot how much he hated having to get up for school in the mornings. This entire experience is really going to suck.

With their meetup in the back of his mind, he forces himself to get dressed. Since he hadn’t seen a washing machine anywhere in the school, he simply balls up his old clothes and chucks them to the side. He’ll just have to figure out what to do with them later. Maybe he should ask that Kirumi girl, after all she is a maid…

Still in a haze, he makes his way out of his dorm and towards the dining room. He’s definitely paying for staying up so late last night when he was already exhausted. Even so, it’s nothing a little coffee can’t fix. This place better at least have coffee. If there isn’t then he might actually kill someone. It would certainly be a good ploy on Monokuma’s part.

Almost everyone seems to have already gathered in the dining hall, sat around the tables as they wait for everyone else to arrive. However, he walks right past everyone, his eyes fixed ahead at the kitchen waiting for him. No one even seems to care that he’s here, too engrossed in their own conversations to bother engaging with him.

The coffee machine on the counter is his first stop, grabbing a plain white mug from the side and filling it up quickly. Coffee’s aren’t normally his thing – too bitter for his taste – but with enough sugar it’ll be fine. He makes sure to heap in just enough to take the edge off before making his way back over to the others, sipping the coffee as he goes.

No one stops him as he drops down onto a chair near the back, resting his feet up on the table. Just like before, they continue with their own lives like normal. At least until he feels a hand rest on his shoulder.

“You should probably take your feet off of the table.” Rantaro nods at his feet and then moves to sit opposite him. He hadn’t seen Rantaro in the dining hall earlier. He must have arrived while he was making himself coffee.

“I should? Really? What if I don’t want to?” He cocks his head to one side, taking another sip of his coffee. It’s not like a little dirt from his shoes would make much of a difference to the surface. You'd never be able to tell with the state they're in. Kirumi must not have gotten around to cleaning the kitchen yet since the dining room was locked all night. 

Rantaro just shrugs his shoulders, sitting down with more poise and elegance than he’d been expecting from him. Even so, Kokichi finds himself taking his legs off of the table anyway. It’s not like it was super comfortable anyway.

“Did you get much sleep last night?” Rantaro’s face stays a clear and emotionless mask. Looking at his face, he can’t tell if Rantaro saw him wandering around last night, if he’s asking because of the coffee or just to make small talk. Everything about him is covered by that mask of his.

“I slept like a baby. Gotta be prepared for the game. Wouldn’t want to miss out on any of the fun, right?” He smirks, waiting for the other boy’s response. However, yet again, there’s no response. His face stays completely blank.

“Of course.”

“What about you? Are you ready for the day?” He looks over at the other boy over his mug. Even as he sips his coffee, he refuses to back off and break eye contact.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Who knows what Monokuma will throw at us?” Even if this is some kind of school, with the killing game he’s not exactly expecting an actual school routine. It just wouldn’t make sense. But even if there aren’t normal classes or anything, will Monokuma have them do something else, or will he just let them do as they please. At this point, he really can’t tell.

“Did you check out those ultimate labs yet?” He clears his throat quietly. They might be locked but he might as well see what the others think of them.

“The ultimate labs? Oh, those locked rooms? I think I remember the Monokubs mentioning them before. I only found two though and they were both locked.” Rantaro loosens his posture slightly, leaning back in his chair a little.

“Two?” He only found the one lab before. There must be another one outside of the main school building then.

“Yeah, Kaede’s and Miu’s. But, like I said, they’re both locked.” Miu’s too. Monokuma will stop him from trying to lockpick that one too.

“I tried lockpicking one of the doors you know.” He speaks casually, finally breaking his eye contact with the green haired boy.

“You did?” For the first time, something like surprise peeks through the iron mask. “Did you get the door open?”

“Nah, unfortunately Monokuma was one step ahead. Apparently, that counts as one of the minimal restrictions to our exploration.” He sighs deeply and forces a depressed expression, “Looks like we’ll just have to play along with Monokuma’s game. What a shame…I guess there’s nothing to be done then.” He shrugs casually, letting a slight smile play on his lips.

Finally Rantaro’s face hardens with something he can’t quite explain. Is that determination? Distrust? Dislike? Even now, he can’t really be sure what Rantaro is thinking about all of this. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.

“I guess we will.” Rantaro pauses for a second, opening his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but is interrupted before he can finish.

Kaede and Shuichi enter the room, once again joined at the hip. Did they really walk all the way here together? Their dependence isn’t going to work out well for them in a place like this. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out they stayed in the same room overnight. He’s never seen one of them without the other.

Right after they arrive and take their seats, Tsumugi walks in, completing the class. These damn people. Couldn’t they have been a little quicker? Better yet, couldn’t they have waited a few seconds to enter so Rantaro could finish what he was going to say.

“Now…all of us have arrived.” Korekiyo is the first one to speak. He’s sat on the same table as Kirumi, their teacups perched delicately on the table in front of them. He can’t tell if he’s surprised to see them together or not. “Kehehe…I’m glad. It looks as though there were no victims.”

“But of course!” Keebo shouts out, standing up from his seat beside Miu, Kaito and Ryoma. He’s still not letting go of that naivete. A few of these people are going to have a rude awakening when a death finally does occur.

“By the way…are you okay, Kaede?” Kokichi doesn’t bother getting up, instead leaning further back in his chair. His eyes meet Kaede’s from across the dining hall but much to his surprise, she quickly averts her eyes. He was under the impression she had a little more backbone. Maybe she’s more like Miu than he’d expected. Too many weak-willed people here…yet another thing playing into Monokuma’s plot.

“Huh? What do you mean?” She gulps, finally letting her eyes meet his. It seems she still has that optimistic spark in her eyes. Yesterday didn’t kill that at the very least then.

“Well…you looked really bummed out after everyone started blaming you yesterday.”

“H-Hey…What are you doing all of –” Tsumugi jumps in, still standing unlike everyone else. She’s certainly not the first person he’d have expected to jump to her defense. Her loyal dog lap dog is staying as quiet as ever.

“Seriously, you guys are so mean. Poor girl… She tried her best to encourage everyone, and you sore losers got mad at her anyway.”

“What’s the point of bringing that up again?” Keebo takes a step towards him. Even from this distance he can see the robot gritting his teeth.

“Actually…didn’t _you_ blame Kaede first?” Tenko joins the group of people standing up, jumping into some kind of Aikido stance. At least he thinks so, he’s never seen anyone do Aikido before.

Her little protection squad jumping to her defense. It’s almost like she can’t defend herself. Of course, the people defending her are the ones that weren’t really hurt by the tunnel yesterday.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Kaito getting up from his seat too. He’s practically seething, the vein on his forehead popping out. After seeing how he’d acted yesterday, it’s more surprisingly that he hadn’t jumped in to speak up for her yet.

“Eh? N-Now it’s my fault? Why are you guys ganging up on me? WAAAAAHHH!!! You guys are terrible! So horrible, so mean!” He lets the fake tears fall. These people drive him mad. People like Kaito who refuse to acknowledge everyone else’s experiences. Who only accept their own reality. It’s only fair he gets to mess with them in return.

“Hmph, you’re too noisy. Cut it out.” Ryoma sighs as he rubs his temples.

“But it’s true. Everyone blamed Kaede without taking any responsibility themselves.” Kaito growls, stepping forward. Unlike the others, he’s not even directing his anger at Kokichi. He’s staring down everyone in the room. Talk about overprotective. How can Kaede even stand his…sense of justice?

“Hey, come on now. Everyone was probably tired.” Rantaro jumps up and tries to put himself between Kaito and Kokichi. You wouldn’t be able to tell Rantaro was even there based on the way Kaito stared through him.

“Shut it! That’s no excuse!” Kaito steps forward again, his face growing redder and redder. He’s kind of glad that Rantaro is there to separate them. His own little body guard or knight in shining armour. 

“No, it’s okay! It doesn’t bother me! It’s just…I should’ve been more considerate of everyone’s feelings. I was too focused on the tunnel… So, I’m sorry…” Only Kaede stepping in seems to snap Kaito out of his rage. A simp if ever he met one. At least the lesson seems to have gotten through to her. Someone learnt something last night then. 

“Alright, well… If you’re okay with it, then so am I.” Kaito scratches the back of his neck, looking down at his shoes. And just like that, everything is suddenly diffused.

“Phew, cool beans! Now everything’s settled!” Kokichi finally jumps up from his chair, placing one hand on Rantaro’s shoulder and the other on Kaito’s. It doesn’t even take a second for both of them to shrug his hand off and move away from him.

“…But you did blame her first, didn’t you?” Keebo scowls, as usual. He’s beginning to wonder if he _can_ smile. Didn’t he say that he could do stand up comedy? What happened to that version of Keebo? He sounds a lot more fun to hang out with than this stiff version. Probably less fun to mess with though. 

“Well, that was a lie. Y’know, one of those lies to make us more united or whatever. Did you know half of my lies are actually told with good intentions?” He holds one hand over his heart, putting as much sincerity behind it as possible. Even so, everyone simply rolls their eyes.

“Now that sounds like a lie.” The little witch girl mumbles as if she somehow knows Kokichi. Well, they’ll all believe whatever they want to believe. It's better that way anyway. 

“Let’s just forget about it and discuss something else. Okay? Let’s all think about ways to get out of here.” Yet again, Kaede tries to take charge. No matter how kind and soothing she sounds, there's no other way of explaining it.

It seems she’s not the only one though. Right at that moment Monokuma drops down from the ceiling into the dining hall. They all just watch, frozen, as he drops down right next to Kaede.

“Before you do that, I have an announcement!”

“Aaaaahhhh!!!” Kaede instantly shuffles away from him. She almost knocks into Shuichi in her hurry to get away.

“Hey, don’t just suddenly show up! It’s too much stress for my heart!” Tsumugi’s hand clenches over her heart, sweat visible on her forehead. This time she doesn’t have Gonta to hide behind…

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to not surprise you.”

“So you did mean to surprise us?” Himiko sounds as low energy as ever, unaffected by the situation when compared to people like Kaede and Tsumugi. Perhaps not quite as stupid as he'd expected though. At least, not completely. 

“Well? Your announcement?” Rantaro steps forward once again. With this group he doubts they’d ever be able to get through a conversation without Rantaro pushing them forward. No matter how mysterious and suspicious the boy is, he’s glad to have him around for times like this.

“It’s not terribly important, but…it’s easier to stay alive by being an obvious goody two-shoes, right? Being thrust into a killing game doesn’t mean you’ll be able to kill someone easily…” Monokuma explains, morphing his face into a sinister shadow of what it normally is. “So I figured I’d ease you guys into the killing game by giving you motivation to kill.” He snarls, making sure to flash his teeth.

“…Motivation to kill?” Maki is utterly calm. Completely unphased. The words sound a little too natural coming from her.

“In short, a motive! That oughta add some mystery to the proceedings! Even if a killer is exposed, they could whip up a sob story to deceive everyone!” A sinister, playful attitude plays on the robot’s face.

He was expecting Monokuma to come up with something like this for a while, but he almost wonders if they’re going to need it. Everyone is already on the breaking point. Monokuma must really want to make sure that a murder happens.

“What are you saying? Your logic is impossible to understand…!” Keebo almost looks like he’s malfunctioning.

“I will now announce the first motive! Make sure you record this moment for posterity!” Monokuma takes his time building the moment up. And they call him the drama queen. It seems Monokuma is after that title. “Now then, the special motive I’ve prepared is called the First Blood Perk! Wow! For the first murder that occurs, no class trial will be held! Can you believe it? That means the first one to kill someone will get to graduate, no strings attached!” Unbridled joy flows through his voice.

“No class trial will be held?” Maki is as quiet and cool as ever.

“I’m sorry that I made the class trial seem more important than it really is… So for the first murder, I’ve decided not to hold a class trial at all. Please just relax, calm down, and kill! After all, the first one’s free!”

It doesn’t take a liar like him to be able to tell that that’s a lie. This whole thing is meant to be a big game so where is the fun in taking out the main part. Even Monokuma has to agree that taking out the trial makes it just murder. There’s no game in the situation when it’s just straight murder. After all the effort that has gone into making this place he wouldn't just drop the game now. There's got to be something else behind this. Some other secret plan or loophole in the rule.

“Huh? That’s all? We just gotta kill someone to get outta here?!” Miu perks up immediately, her coffee abandoned on the table. As if she could actually murder someone. After seeing her prominent lack of backbone he can’t see her actually going through with a confrontation. Not until she gets more desperate.

“That’s all? What’s that supposed to mean?! Please just calm down!” Keebo turns to her and scowls, apparently surprised by her declaration. Perhaps they haven’t been spending as much time together as he’d expected. 

“First Blood Perk?! Don’t make it sound like some kind of game show bonus!” Tenko yells as if Monokuma hasn’t been calling this sick twisted situation a game from the start.

“Puhuhuhu… You say all that, but I bet you’re really happy, huh?” Monokuma slowly approaches Tenko, laughing almost manically as he goes.

“There’s no way I’m happy!”

“S-Stop messing around… Do you think this is fun for us?” Kaede shields Tenko from Monokuma, only barely covering her fear. If you ask him, it would make more sense for Tenko to be the one protecting Kaede. After all, isn’t Tenko the one that actually has any kind of battle training – not that she’d be able to use that if she doesn’t want to get done in by an Exisal.

“Hm?”

“Do you really think I’d kill someone just to get out? In your dreams! We’re not gonna lose to you! We promised each other we’d escape from this place!” Her sudden burst of confidence comes from nowhere. If it wasn’t so dumb and naïve he would say he was impressed. If only he could have such blind faith in the crazy Ultimates they’ve been locked in this school with.

“Puhuhu… Spare me your false bravado. You should be focusing on how you plan to survive. You just gotta kill someone, right?” Monokuma almost sounds like he’s goading her. Goading her into murdering someone? Well, if that’s his goal then it’s a long shot. Out of everyone here, she’s probably one of the less likely candidates to actually kill someone. He’d have better luck going after one of the weaker willed people in the group (and there are plenty to choose from). 

“Why you…bastard!” Kaito growls from deep in his throat. _Speak of the devil…_

“I see… The prisoner’s dilemma. How very clever of you Monokuma.” Rantaro mumbles, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. It’s hard to tell if he was speaking to the group or just muttering to himself.

“Huh? What’s that?”

“We all know it’s better to cooperate rather than betray each other, right? But if you don’t cooperate, you receive some benefit that no one else gets. It’s an incentive to betray the group to give yourself an advantage. With that in the back of all of our minds, we’re less likely to cooperate. That’s Monokuma’s plan. To make a non-cooperative game that tanks Kaede’s plan to get us to cooperate.” To combat Kaede’s plan. She might not be the most talented or the strongest or even the smartest, but he supposes she probably is Monokuma’s biggest threat right now. If she gets everyone else on board with the way of thinking then Monokuma loses. If only it was that easy…

“What?”

“And if a murder were to occur…it’d be even more unlikely that we’d cooperate.” Shuichi finally speaks but it's barely more than a whisper. 

Everything he says is true though. He doubts they’ll be any cooperation even without a first murder but a murder would utterly destroy any trust between them. Exactly what Monokuma would need to stop Kaede winning. Is that really worth ruining his ‘game’ though. Does he really see Kaede as that much of a threat? Well the more he’s focused on Kaede, the less he’s focusing on the rest of them.

“It’s likely he created this perk for that sole purpose.” Korekiyo speaks softly, still sipping his tea. Kokichi had almost forgotten about his own coffee, still sitting on his and Rantaro’s table…

“Right, I bet you can’t stand all this tension in the air, right? So it’s better to just kill!” Monokuma jumps up, enthusiastically as if talking about opening presents or a fun day trip. Not the kind of tone you'd hear related to murder - or school.

“Wh-What…? You…” Tenko is practically vibrating with an uncontained fury. She’s seconds away from pushing past Kaede and completely disregarding Monokuma’s rule against attacking him. One of these days, maybe. 

“It seems you are quite serious about forcing us to participate in this killing game. What exactly is your objective?” Kirumi finally stands up, retaining all her usual grace and elegance.

“His objective doesn’t matter! I’m through letting him have his way! I’ve had enough!!!” Unsurprisingly, Kaito is the first one unable to hold himself back from attacking. He knew the boy was stupid but not _this_ stupid. Well, too bad. At least they won’t have to deal with him anymore.

Sure enough, the second Kaito lunges at Monokuma, the other pests of the school make their appearance. All five of them pop up at once, and he doesn’t doubt they’ve got the Exisals waiting nearby. Even Kaito can only stand there, paralysed as the cubs appear.

“Hell yeah! Looks like we got ourselves a volunteer!” The blue bear screams, bloodlust reaching soaring new heights.

“Finally, it’s time for the Exisals!” He hadn’t even touched Monokuma, even if he was planning on attacking him. Would they really go so far as to use the Exisals on him when he hasn’t even technically broken the rules?

“I won’t let you lay a hand on Daddy! We want Daddy to smile every day!” He does his best to try and ignore Monophanie as the Monokubs keep dragging out the moment.

“Youse bastards better pay attention! This is what happens when you mess with us!”

“Wh..What? What are you guys planning to do?” Sweat builds on Kaito’s forehead as he begins to tremble. He’s barely holding himself upright as he shuffles further and further back from the Monokubs.

“P-Please, don’t!” Keebo jumps forward, his voice trembling as much as Kaito is.

“Run, Kaito!” Kaede tries to call out but he doesn’t see what good that’ll do. No matter how good Kaito is at running, those Exisals wouldn’t struggle to catch up. He might feel bad for the guy if it wasn’t a clear stated rule.

All they can do is watch as an Exisal appears in the room, gleaming menacingly. It fixes it’s sights on Kaito, preparing for the onslaught. Even Kaito seems to have had the fight sapped right out of him. All he does in his final moments is stand there, motionless, staring down the machine that is going to tear him apart.

But then…

“GRRRRRAAHHHHHH!” Monokuma cries out, pinned down underneath the Exisal instead. Nothing that just happened made sense. Did he drink too much coffee? Is he still dreaming? Somehow instead of having Kaito pinned down, the Exisal went after Monokuma instead?

“Huh?” Kaede blinks several times. Utterly speechless.

“Wh-What is this…? What’s going on…?” Tenko looks over at the Monokubs who are watching in horror as their ‘daddy’ self-destructs into tiny metal fragments scattered across the room.

Why would the mastermind do that? There’s no doubt in his mind that this is according to some kind of plan, but whatever it is escapes him. He’s been left with the unsatisfactory feeling one too many times recently.

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but… Monokuma’s in pieces.” Ryoma hesitates, unsure of what he’s even saying. Pieces is certainly one word for it. He willingly allowed himself to blow up. The Exisal isn’t what killed him, he killed himself…

“S-Serves him right! He got just what he deserved!” Kaito’s heavy breaths do little to back up his statement.

“Do not celebrate just yet. I’m certain he has a spare that will appear momentarily.” Kirumi holds out an arm demandingly, forcing everyone back into their places. Collectively they stand their holding their breaths for god knows how long. Waiting patiently. Waiting for a new Monokuma to pop up and bring them misery once again.

“Th-There is no spare! Don’t trivialise life like that!” Monophanie cries out as if they weren’t all robots with an AI program that could easily be transferred to a new model. He doesn’t know if he’d even consider what they have as ‘life’.

“What?”

“When Father was still alive, he used to tell us cubs…that we must cherish life because we’re like snowflakes – unique in every way.” The red bears behaviour is almost convincing. If he wasn’t a program that could be designed to act however the creator wanted he might believe it. However, these bears don’t even need to ‘act’. Technically all their behaviour is an act in a way. Again, that just raises the question of _why_. Why do all this?

“If only one existed, then does this mean Monokuma is dead?” Maki frowns and stares over at the now motionless Exisal and the scattered parts of Monokuma.

His mind is still reeling as he listens to the Monokubs mutter about a funeral for Monokuma before they vanish and take their Exisal with them.

What had started off as a nice breakfast meet up had devolved into a motive from Monokuma only to end with the bear in question faking his ‘death’…? Is this some kind of plan to get the killing game started? If so, whoever is controlling Monokuma is playing several moves ahead of him.

“U-Umm… What’s going on?” Tsumugi stares, open mouthed just like the rest of them. He wishes he could give her an answer – that anyone could give her an answer – but unfortunately not.

“Hmm… Everything’s a complete mess now. But if there’s no final boss…then that means this killing game is cancelled!” He puts on his best happy and carefree mask. At the very least he can make the most of all this chaos. With Monokuma gone maybe they can at least stop any murders occurring any time soon. At least until they figure out what is happening here.

“Huh?! Cancelled?!” Gonta looks over at him, wide eyed.

“I don’t think so. Monokuma’s just a robot. There has to be someone controlling him.” Rantaro clears his throat, bending down to examine the scattered parts. With them so utterly destroyed he doubts they’d get anything useful from them.

If this was really it, he’d almost feel a little disappointed. To see the mastermind put all this chaos to rest without any kind of fight would just be…anti-climactic. A waste of a set up.

“Ah-haha, don’t be such a worrywart! Everything’s definitely over now! With the mastermind gone, continuing this game is pretty much impossible. Which means…we win!” He waves off their concerns casually. The smarter people in the group might not buy it but at least the idiots will refrain from killing. He’ll count that as a win. At this point, he’ll take a win wherever he can.

“Yay! We did it! Nyahahaha!” Case and point…

“So we’re not in danger anymore?” Even Tenko visibly relaxes, moving out of her defensive stance to return to Himiko’s side.

“Oh, so do we just wait here for the shuttle bus to pick us up, or…?”

“W-Wait a minute! We don’t know that yet –” Kaede tries to interfere, yet again. Is that all she’s good for. Sure, she might not be as dumb as the others but can’t she see what will happen if everyone knows that Monokuma will be back? That motive was put in place for a reason. As long as Monokuma is present, that motive will be in play.

“Kaede, quit being a buzzkill! Everyone’s still annoyed about what you did yesterday!” He cuts through her words. Someone has to keep this group together, even if it isn’t in the way Kaede might want. He’s not going to let Monokuma have his way.

“B-But I didn’t mean it like tha –” She bites down on her lower lip, her arm trembling ever so slightly.

“Or…is there still something you would have us do, Kaede?” Korekiyo steps to interrupt the pianist this time.

“Don’t tell me you wanna take on that underground passage again?!” Miu growls, aiming all her pent-up distrust round on Kaede. He can practically hear the groans erupting across the room at the thought of going back there. Those wounds are still too fresh. He can still feel the aching of his muscles reminding him of the hell awaiting them down there.

“…Quiet. We know it’s impossible.” Maki places a hand on Miu’s arm, gently holding her back. Even though no one says anything, they can all see the look she gives Kaede.

“S-Sorry…” She doesn’t even try to defend herself. He can’t help but feel a little bad for her, even if she had put them through all that stuff last night. She’s not bad really…

“Whatevs, looks like we’re done here. Phew, what a relief.” He sighs, wiping off non existent sweat from his forehead. No one has anything else to say, they just sit there in silence, resigning themselves to the tension.

Yet again, no one stops him as he wanders out of the dining hall. Not even Rantaro who has sat back down on the table. He keeps to himself as he sip his now cold coffee.

No time to rest now. 


	4. The Climb and the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi starts to make plans

No one follows him as he makes his way through the school and back to the dormitories. And with everyone still in the dining hall, there’s no one else around to get in his way.

The peaceful wind rustles through his hair, giving the illusion of freedom. Somehow that’s actually worse. Like a constant reminder of what he’s lost. It just fuels the flickering, smouldering flame of hatred of Monokuma inside him. That darkness deep inside of him. A constant reminder of what he's supposed to be doing right now. 

Once he gets back to his room he makes sure to lock the door behind him and sits cross legged on the floor with the sheets and dumbbell he’d gotten from the warehouse next to him. Sighing, he puts on one of his DVD's and lets the droning sound of the program ring out in the background. Although he can hear the words and noise, it all goes right through him. Bouncing off of his silence. And just like that, he sits cross legged and works in silence to knot the sheets together into one long rope.

For once in his life, he’s actually getting to use his knot tying skills. Who said it’d never come in handy? Clearly whoever told him that has never been locked in a strange bird cage and forced to do a murder game. Everyday problems, y'know. 

Pulling on the sheets as harshly as he can muster, he can feel the tension. There’s no slipping and the rope holds completely firm. Hopefully, that’s enough. He doesn’t really feel like becoming a pancake today. That would certainly put a damper on his plans…

With the rope done, he ties one end around the dumbbell. It’s pretty crass and shoddily made but as long as it does what it needs to. He’s never been a master craftsman but this isn’t the time to really care about that. He probably should have looked around the warehouse more for something better than the dumbbell.

“Here we go…” He’s not sure if he’s talking to himself or to the mastermind. Would it even matter at this point. He tries to imagine the psychotic weirdo who orchestrated all of this locked up in some room somewhere watching him on a screen. It sounds surprisingly boring if you ask him. Then again he's not batshit insane so who knows what's going through the mastermind's mind as they watch them all. 

With that thought distracting his mind, he swings the rope and dumbbell over his back to let it swing casually. If Monokuma is going to see either way, there’s no point in putting the effort in. Others might think it’s weird but who knows where they even are. Those idiots might just be standing around ‘waiting for the shuttle bus’ for all he knows.

However, even as he steps out of his dorm room, a familiar voice calls out to him. At once he stops in his tracks, preparing himself for a lecture. God, maybe Monokuma was right about this being a school. It is certainly starting to feel like one.

“Kokichi. What, may I ask, are you doing?” The cool distant voice slices into him like sharpened blades. With one hand still clenching the doorknob, he turns around to look down to the ground floor of the dorms.

Sure enough, standing there still as marble, is Kirumi. She’s just standing there. Standing there with an unnatural stillness. Is this how it feels to be in some kind of horror film? No matter how hard he thinks, he can’t think of a single reason anyone would just be waiting by the doors of the dormitory. Now he's knows Keebo exists, maybe she’s some kind of secret ninja android maid.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to go murder someone and get out of this place for good.”

“You aren’t planning anything, are you?” Kirumi doesn’t move even a centimetre from spot as she glares him down. A shiver traces down his spine under the feeling of those cool piercing eyes.

“I’m offended you’d even ask! Of course not. Besides, Monokuma is completely and utterly gone now. Why would we even need to worry?” He scoffs as loudly as he can muster. Still nothing. He hopes she, at the very least, doesn't believe all that crap.

“If you do anyth–”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.” He casually brushes her off as he moves down the stairs towards her, “I’ll be on my bestest behaviour.”

“Good.” She regards him one final time but before he can be lectured any further, he slinks away. Just before he leaves the building, he flashes a thumbs up behind him. He can practically feel the disapproval wafting off of her. “Byeeee!”

“Kokichi –” But the door slams closed behind him before he can hear the end of her lecture. Ahhh, the sweet sound of silence. Almost silence anyway. The closest he's going to get here. 

Once again the soft whistling of the wind running through the long grass and leaves around him. That, the distant sound of footsteps on the ground and the overpowering mechanical sounds of the Exisals tearing through the shrubbery. It’s anything but natural and peaceful but he’ll take it over a droning lecture any day.

Before anyone else can try to stop him, he moves away from the dormitories towards the stairs down to the courtyard. Somewhere in the distance he thinks he can hear Kaito talking to someone and instinctively speeds up a little. Either that or he’s starting to go insane. Now that would be a scary thought.

But, despite his better judgment he still finds himself stopping. Lulled in by his own curiosity. A slightly bit of rustling in the shrubbery and he's instantly right back. As he watches, Gonta shuffles through the wild foliage. Unlike usual, he's not paying any attention to anything around him. Or at least not paying attention to him. With his huge form, it’s honestly surprising it took Kokichi that long to notice him at all.

He simply stands there, waiting to be noticed, but no matter how long Kokichi stands there Gonta never notices. Laser focused in a way Kokichi hadn’t quite expected. For the first time he actually looks like the Ultimate Entomologist.

“Whatcha doingggggggg?” He coos out, raising one of his arms high and waving it. Instantly, Gonta snaps to attention, a wide bright smile on his face. It’s probably the happiest anyone has ever looked when greeting him.

“Kokichi! Gonta is looking for bugs. Gonta not understand why no bugs here.” Bugs…he tries to supress the shiver running down his spine. Their tiny legs crawling over him… God, he doesn’t understand why Gonta misses those bugs. It’s a blessing as far as he is concerned. One of the few blessings about this place.

“Wow, that amazingggg.” He drawls sarcastically, but Gonta just keeps on grinning, “It’s such a shame that there are no bugs here!”

“Kokichi like bugs too?” Gonta’s eyes sparkle in an almost heart-warming way. Like a child locked away in a large, almost animalistic man's body.

“Of course! I love bugs!”

“Really?! That’s good! No bad person likes bugs.” He can’t say he agrees with the sentiment but at least he’s on Gonta’s good side. Of all the people here, he could definitely be the most dangerous…although he doesn’t like the look of Maki or Rantaro either. Actually, given ample time, most the people here look like they could kill. Had even seemed willing to before Monokuma ‘died’.

“Actually, I have a favour to ask you, since we’re such good friends.” He pleads with Gonta as genuinely as he can muster. Not that he really needs to put in much effort. If Gonta couldn’t even tell when Kokichi was sarcastic, how would he ever be able to read Kokichi now?

“F-Friends? Gonta and Kokichi are friends?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?” He gasps and places his free hand over his heart dramatically. It almost feels a little depressing to see Gonta like this. Pathetic almost.

“R-Really?!” A slight blush brushes over his cheeks as he looks away into the distance.

“I’ve been trying to find a way to secretly get us all out of here.” He leans closer to Gonta, one hand cupped around his mouth so his mouth is hidden from anyone else that might be lurking around.

“A way out! Really?!”

“Shhhh, we have to be quiet! What if the Monokubs are listening?!” With wide eyes he goes up on his tippy toes to put a finger up to Gonta’s lips.

“Oh, yes! Very true! Kokichi is very smart. What is Kokichi’s plan then?”

“I made this, see.” He holds up the rope for Gonta to look at. Cautiously, Gonta reaches down as if to touch it before stopping still and looking down at Kokichi for permission, “I was thinking we could use it as a kind of grappling hook but I’m not super strong like Gonta is.” Almost at once Gonta starts violently nodding. Eager to please. Instantly jumping on the bait left for him. 

“So Kokichi needs Gonta’s help to throw the dumbbell like grappling hook to cage bars.” Gonta nods with a harsh and serious expression. It’s actually pretty scary… The intense darkened look sends an involuntary shiver down his spine. An animalistic, primal look of determination. Almost vicious.

So, he actually knows what a grappling hook is and figured out where Kokichi would use it? Maybe he hasn’t been giving Gonta enough credit.

“Exactly, you’re so smart Gonta.” Another blush floods over Gonta’s cheeks. It’s a complete 180 to the previous look. Is there more to Gonta or is he just getting paranoid from being cooped up in here? Insanity here he comes.

“We go now then?”

“Yup.” He reaches over and gently places a hand on Gonta’s forearm encouragingly.

Despite his smaller legs, he walks well ahead of the taller boy who’s practically skipping behind him. Even as they walk, Gonta seems to still be looking around at their surroundings. His childish glee is clearly visible. He hadn’t thought Gonta would be like that when he first saw him and read his profile - however he definitely finds him more enjoyable to be around this way.

“How’s your injury doing?” He’s not sure why he even brings it up. Clearly the taller boy is walking completely fine. Is it just because no one else had checked up on him earlier. Not that anyone else really noticed before in the tunnel either.

“It’s okay. Much better than yesterday.” Gonta places a hand delicately over where his injury had been. It’s so delicate he can’t even tell if he’s actually touching it or not.

“I can help you with it if you want. I’ve got a bit of experience when it comes to dealing with that stuff.” He tries to push down all the memories that flood into his mind as he says that. Now’s not the time to be dwelling on the past, he needs to focus all his attention on dealing with Monokuma.

A completely healthy coping mechanism as far as he's concerned. 

“Really?” Gonta stops still with that ever-innocent smile shining through his soft eyes. How can anyone look that pure? Compared to some of the more…dangerous people here, he’s glad there are some people unlikely to fall into Monokuma’s game. Not everyone is a lost cause.

“Sure. It didn’t look too bad but still...”

“Thank you Kokichi.”

“Hmmm… We didn’t get to introduce ourselves earlier.” He turns around and stars walking backwards so he can talk to Gonta as they walk. He might have read through the profiles of everyone, that doesn’t really give him any real information about them.

“No. Gonta heard Kokichi is Ultimate Supreme Leader.”

“You heard about that, huhhhh?” Hopefully he doesn’t trip over or he’s going to look like a real idiot, “Well, it’s true. I lead a huge secret evil organisation!” Unlike normal, he keeps a normal neutral expression as he speaks, waiting to see how Gonta reacts.

“Gonta not really understand…” Gonta hangs he head down low. With his smaller height he can still just about make out Gonta's face as he bites down on his lower lip. 

“What about you then?” He stops moving for a second, letting Gonta close the distance between them.

“What about Gonta?” Kokichi simply shrugs. It’s just to pass the time anyway. For a second Gonta hums, placing a finger on his chin delicately. “Ummm…well…Gonta is Ultimate Entomologist. Kid Gonta spent lots of time looking at bugs – because of that Gonta got lost in forest and had to get raised by forest family.” His tone is somehow a strange mix of both sombre and happy. He really can’t put his finger on it.

“Raised by forest family?” How did he even survive? He can’t imagine living so far out of society like that – although he won’t lie that he’s a little jealous of the freedom it must have given him. Although it wouldn’t be worth the diet. No way is he going to live without Panta. No matter how much you paid him.

“Yes, Gonta raised by forest family of wolves.” He only barely stops himself from snorting. It sounds eerily similar to a boom he’d read once as a kid.

“Woah sounds amazing. Must have been lots of fun.” He smiles widely and sees his own smile reflected in Gonta.

“Gonta misses forest family very much!”

“Well, we’re getting out of here soon right. You’ll see them then.” He feels his throat constrict slightly as he says it. For some reason he sort of feels bad for giving the larger teen unfounded hope. Hope that is going to be gone soon enough. Just collateral damage unfortunately. 

“Yes!” Another bright happy and innocent smile.

“Well, here we are.” He comes to a stop and beckons Gonta closer as he vaults over the fencing towards the wooded area behind. Gonta, although not having Kokichi’s grace, somehow manages to make it look even easier.

Together, they walk all the way over to the edge of the wall where there is the biggest gap between the trees. It’s not a big enough space to call it a clearing but it’s the closest they’re going to get. Between the trees, there’s just about enough space to see the cage looming above them. A brief break in the dark canopy.

“So, do you think you can reach it?” He points up at the cage. Now he looks at it, it’s ridiculously high up. There’s no way he’d ever be able to do that – even if he tried to climb up a tree he’d never be able to throw the dumbbell that high. Good thing he spotted Gonta then. After what happened yesterday, if anyone could make the shot it would be him.

“Hmmm…Gonta thinks so but Gonta not sure.”

“Well, we can try at least.”

“Yes, Kokichi right.” Kokichi reaches over and hands Gonta the poorly made grappling hook. However, Gonta doesn’t even look at it twice, weighing it up carefully. Then, he suddenly reels his arm back and looks up at the bars above him.

“Wait a second!” Kokichi yells out suddenly, making Gonta flinch back.

“Huh?”

Kokichi darts back away from Gonta and ducks behind a tree. Nee-heehee. No dumbbells are getting to him today. Screw blunt force trauma.

“Okay, you can go now!” From his little hidden space he sticks out a hand around the tree to stick a thumb up.

“Okay.” Gonta nods fiercely and reels his arm back once again. From his position he can hardly see what’s happening. Even as Gonta throws the dumbbell up into the air, he can only just see it soaring through the sky. The manhole cover definitely wasn’t a one off then. It’s even more impressive seeing it like this though. To see a relatively heavy dumbbell soar through the sky like it’s nothing more than a lone leaf on the wind.

Not only is it flying with such ease, it even has pin point accuracy. It has flown right towards the edge of one of the bars, ready to wrap around it. However, right before it goes between the bars, the dumbbell smashes into something and drops right back down onto the floor.

“What?” Gonta is frozen staring up at the bars of the cage.

 _I see_ … He was worried this would happen. Straining his eyes he tries his best to see what was blocking it. _It’s useless_. No matter what he tries, there’s nothing visible from here.

“Glass or something is between the bars.” Gonta mumbles, pointing at the spot where the dumbbell had hit.

“Glass?” He steps out from behind the tree and approaches the fallen dumbbell, crouching down beside it. “You can see it?”

“Uhuh. Only faint but Gonta can just about see it from here.”

Once again he tries to look up for any signs of it but there’s still nothing. The only things visible are the tops of the skyscrapers in the distance. It’s not like he doubts Gonta, but he can’t see anything. For someone that wears glasses he has insane vision.

“So there’s no way we’ll be able to get a get it up there then.” He tries to hold back a sigh. Of course, he knew it was a long shot but he’d hoped that he would at least be able to get up high enough to see over the other side of the wall. Back to the drawing board.

“Gonta could try to make a ladder?” Gonta hangs his head down low.

“Sure, you could try.” There’s no way he could make a ladder safe enough to climb up, but it might be worth trying. After all this he doubts anything will be easy. Well, it’s better that way really. What would be the fun in taking down Monokuma if he made things easy.

“Gonta do that now!” At once, as if he hadn’t just been dejected a few seconds before, he snaps his head up with a wide grin.

“You do that!” Matching Gonta’s energy, he holds both thumbs up encouragingly. Let him do as he wants. Who knows, maybe it will actually work. Who’s he to stop Gonta?

With those words of encouragement, he starts running off into the distance to god knows where. Kokichi just stands there, watching him vanish. Even with no one to watch him, he finds himself waving at the receding figure.

Now without any plan in mind, he doesn’t really know what to do. Maybe he should have thought a little further ahead than this. Too bad. He’ll just have to figure out his next plan of action.

Without thinking his feet lead him down the path towards the boiler room from yesterday. Drawing him in like a magnet. He didn’t realise he was secretly a masochist. In the back of his mind he tries to imagine what Kaede would say if she saw him right now. Just the thought makes the hairs on his arms stand up.

Even so, he closes the door behind him and stares down into the abyss of darkness and despair beneath him. The manhole cover is off in the corner of the room. Thankfully so because otherwise he’d never be able to open it without Gonta. Or maybe not so thankfully.

Despite the painful memories of the other day still fresh in his mind, he still allows himself into grab onto the ladder and begin his descent once again. The descent into madness. What was that quote again…? _Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results_? Well, he’s never been too worried about being insane. Insanity might be fun. Time to find out.

Regardless he finds himself quickly regretting his thoughtless decision to rush right in. Without the others, the cavern at the bottom of the ladder feels even larger and hollower than before. A darkened husk. 

As he moves down the cavern towards the torturous obstacle course, his footsteps echo all around him. An illusion of the others that had been with him last time. Somehow, he feels so…small by comparison. It’s never a feeling he’d had before when he wandered alone at night.

Bracing himself, he puts the feeling aside to charge head on into the death trap ahead of him. With a fresher slightly more awake mind, he tries to remember all the traps waiting here. However, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how hard he tries to memorise all the right moves, he’s always knocked down. And every time he’s knocked down, he wakes up right back at the start again.

He’s not even sure why he’s still throwing himself at this brick wall. Maybe it’s _because_ Monokuma made it so hard to reach. In his experience anything worth having is difficult to reach. The harder the challenge the better the reward.

In the distance he can hear the quiet ringing of the Monokubs announcement. The end of another day of confinement. Yet again, the sound of the ringing echoes eerily in the emptiness around him.

Once again, every inch of his body aches and groans. With every movement he makes his body screams out at him. But, in spite of that, he drags himself over to the ladder. Deja vu, am I right.

Not only does his body and injuries hurt, but his stomach is growling incessantly. He hadn’t realised how little he’s eaten all day. Falling into bad habits again... For a second he thinks about going to the dining hall to grab some food but then he remembers Monokuma’s stupid rule. Of course, no going into the dining hall at night. It still doesn’t make any sense.

Pulling himself up the ladder with his grazed hands, he clambers out of the hole and back onto the ground. His weakened hand clenches the fresh grass sprouting around the entrance. Gripping onto something. Anything.

Finally, on shaky feet he carries himself out of the boiler room and back towards the school. Although it goes against everything he wants, he needs to grab something from the warehouse. Better yet, he can grab a whole supply of snacks and be stocked up for next time he’s in needs.

Maybe they'll even stock Panta. 

Daydreaming of snacks, he drags his feet all the way over to the school’s warehouse. Trekking through the darkness in pursuit of food. Not to mention doing his best not to trip over all the roots and grasses cracking through the floor. Sometimes their placement almost seems like an intentional attempt to catch him.

When he finally reaches the door, he throws himself against it, hugging the wood like his life depends on it. Screw Atua, snacks are the true god. Like the drama queen he is, he throws open the door of the warehouse and takes a step in.

“Come to papa.” He whispers under his breath as he moves down the passageways, grabbing an armful of a huge range of snacks. Everything from crisps to sweets to soda's. He rifles through the soda stacks but nada. Zilch. All this selection and no Panta. Truly Monokuma's most dastardly act so far.

Jokes aside, he sighs and grabs some random cans of whatever it is Monokuma did give them. The snacks and drinks are all piled as high as possible so he can barely see over the pile. It’s a task and a half to keep them from falling off onto the floor. He’s about to turn around and leave when he spots a stack of disposable cameras in a cardboard box.

Cameras? Really? Of all the things to include in a warehouse like this. Then again if this is a killing game then maybe having cameras would help with solving the murders…

Curiously, he drops all his stuff onto the ground and picks up the cardboard box, setting it down on the ground. He picks up a camera and rips it out of the packaging, looking through the viewfinder at the darkened room around him. It’s not all that clear but it would do in a pinch. There’s even developing solution included.

One by one, he starts to move the cameras out of the box and onto the shelf, giving himself a free box. Once it’s fully empty, he shoves all of the snacks he’d gathered into the box along with the opened camera. He’s not sure why he’d ever need it but it could be fun anyway. Who knows when you’ll need blackmail material?

While he's there he grabs a few handfuls of random office supplies and other useful little things, shoving them all in the box with everything else. In his half conscious, exhausted state he's not even sure what he's grabbing. Well, what's the harm in grabbing unnecessary stuff anyway. 

Now with his box in hand, he hobbles out of the warehouse, mouth practically watering. It weighs heavily in his weakened arms but he can’t bring himself to care right now. Besides, as long as it might feel when he’s tired, it’s still not really that far.

Since the night time announcement had already played, he wasn’t expecting to see anyone else around the school but apparently he was mistaken. As soon as the glass doors to the dorms open, he is greeted by a familiar voice.

“Kokichi.” Yet again!

“You’re still here?” He stops dead in his tracks, staring at Kirumi. That’s it, she’s definitely an android. There’s no other explanation, “Were you stood there all day?”

“Of course not. I am a maid and so I am waiting for people to give me their orders.” Her prim and proper attitude really doesn’t help the case against her being an android. What person can just devote themselves to others so…easily. It’s freaky more than anything else.

“Didn’t the night time announcement already go.” Naughty Kirumi. He’d thought she, of all people, would already be in her room. Then again, there’s no rule _against_ being out at night, he supposes.

“I was about to go to bed. You look injured… And what is in that box?” Kirumi’s face stays utterly neutral as she skims over him. Ughhhh. Is it going to be like this every day here?

“I was busy murdering someone. Their dead body is in this box, see.” He grins and tilts the box towards Kirumi. Deadpan. Utterly deadpan.

“Good night, Kokichi.” The look on her face must be her android version of a scowl. The closest she has gotten to an emotion.

“You’re not going to tuck me in?”

“Goodnight.” She simply walks away towards her room with her head held high.

“Night mummmmm!” He calls after her, but she quietly closes the door with a soft lock. “We’ll have more fun tomorrow!”

In the utter silence, he makes his way back up to his room. With his hands full he has to drop the box of food on the floor to unlock his door and ends up kicking it over the threshold. All his energy drained, he flops down on the bed face first. Completely burying himself in the soft covers.

As he lies there his stomach keeps on screaming at him but he can’t bring himself to get up and get some food. This would be a great time to get telekinetic powers or something. Or maybe he can just get Kirumi to come and feed him as he lays here.

In the end, he forces himself to roll off of the bed and shuffle over to the armchair with a packet of crisps from the box. As he eats, he can’t help but wonder whatever became of Gonta. Did he ever get that ladder made?

The lack of pyjama’s in the wardrobe feels like a major oversight on Monokuma’s part. Considering everything else they’ve been given; it seems like a basic thing that was missed off. When he has a little more energy, he’s going to give Monokuma a piece of his mind.

“You hear that Monokuma, your wardrobe sucks!” He yells out to no one and, unsurprisingly, no one responds. Ahhh, the sweet silence of no Monokuma or Monokubs.

But without anything else to really change into, he simply takes off his shirt and chucks it over the back of the armchair and goes to brush his teeth in the en suite. He still needs to figure out where they’re supposed to wash their clothes. He should’ve asked Kirumi while he saw her lurking around like a creeper.

As he lies there in the darkness he can’t help but think of the dream he had the night before. The nightmare. If every night here is like that this is going to suck.

Thankfully for him, the road to despair must have really worn him out. Even as he lies there, he can feel himself being dragged in deeper into sleep. It crushes down on him all at once. He doesn’t even have time to think before the sudden ringing of the morning bell his snapping him awake. Reflexively he jumps up, suddenly wide awake as the bears begin their little chant.

“Ugh!” He grabs a pillow and throws it at the monitor, but it simply bounces off with ease leaving him frustrated and pillowless.

As much as he would love to just stay in bed, he allows himself to be dragged out of bed. No way is he going to go any longer without getting something to eat. He can practically feel his stomach screaming at him after yesterday.

As the Monokub’s announcement fades away he gets out of bed and changes into some new clothes. He’s about to leave the room when he stops and grabs the camera from out of the bag. Who knows, maybe it’ll come in handy somehow.

For the first time as he steps out, Kirumi isn’t there. He has to double take just to be sure. In her place is Ryoma, casually leaning against the wall without a care in the world. Despite his small size, there’s a large presence surrounding him. Larger than life.

However, even as Kokichi approaches, the other boy keeps his head down with his hat hiding his face. What is it with people and hats in his school? Its like they _know_ it makes them harder to read. Not that he necessarily needs to see their faces to read them. Most times, body language can tell you just as much.

Ryoma doesn’t even look up from his hunched over position as Kokichi walks right past him towards the door. If he didn’t know the tennis players history, he might even be fooled into thinking the boy didn’t realise Kokichi was there. For a moment, he considers interrupting whatever he’s thinking about but stops himself at the last second. What would he even say? Instead, he just pushes through into the outer world. The outer world of the cage, at least.

Logically, he knows he should probably head towards the dining hall where everyone will be right now, but instead he walks over to the seating area right in front of the dorms and sits down at the table. In a way he’s mentally preparing himself. Or maybe he just wants to keep an eye on who’s leaving the dorms later.

As he sits there, he starts to zone out – still partially asleep. Part of his brain still happily asleep in his bed. If only the rest of him could be there right now.

In his zoned-out state, it takes him embarrassingly long to hear the steps coming up behind him. It takes even longer still notice the pink vest and skirt of the owner of the footsteps.

“Good moooorning, Kaede!” He turns around to face the pianist as she gets closer and closer. Despite himself, he can’t help but notice the slight bags lining the underside of her eyes along with the spaced out look deep within them. It still is the morning he supposes.

“Morning…” She stops a few steps away from him, well out of arm’s reach. One of her arms reaches other to grip her other. Closing herself off completely. He might not know her well but even so, it somehow feels strange to see her like this.

Curiously, he peers around only to find her completely alone. Just the two of them. Chance are that the others are all already gathered in the dining hall or are just sleeping in. He hasn’t the first clue why she’d approach him but here she is.

“Maaan, I slept great last night. Y’know, this place is alright when there’s nothing to worry about.” He fake yawns as he stretches out. Unsurprisingly though, the charade only seems to annoy the blonde girl more, “Oh! So…how far have you gone with Shuichi?” One corner of his lips curves up mischievously.

“Huh?! Wh-What are you talking about?!” But the bright blush absolutely betrays her. It might be a bit of a low blow but it’s just too fun. Besides, where’s the harm in a low blow every once and a while. 

“Nee-heehee… What were you imagining just now? I just wanted to know how far you’ve gone exploring this place together, that’s all.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively which somehow manages to make her more red. If only Shuichi was here right now. Double the fun.

“That’s none of your business, Kokichi.” She tears her gaze away in a poor attempt to will the colour out of her cheeks.

“Huh? What’s with the attitude…? You’re so mean! I thought you said we were friends, Kaede! But you were lying this whole time! WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” Once again, he lets the tears flow freely. After all her friendship nonsense it’s almost cathartic to see her get annoyed at him. When she’d been so pliant about the tunnel matter he’d almost thought she actually bought into the whole ‘we’re all besties’ thing.

“Yeah, well, you’re lying too.” The sudden firmness catches him a little off guard. That bright fire she sometimes has rearing its head once more. It’s better than her other more passive side at the very least.

“Oh? Wow, Kaede. You know how to stand your ground, don’tcha? But you’re right – I was lying. After all, we’re just strangers to one another. That’s why I don’t really care what you and Shuichi do. Besides, even friends don’t share everything with each other!” Even as he says it, he isn’t really sure what he wants to tell her. That she shouldn’t get so close to shuichi? That her friendship nonsense is going to get someone killed? That trusting any of these strangers could get her killed?

“Huh?”

“I’m more nervous around friends who share too much than strangers, really.” There’s something…unsettling about that kind of friendship. Friends who trust each other too easily. Friends who bare themselves completely – or at least pretend to.

Before Kaede can answer again, he gives her a wave and walks off. With his hands in his pocket, he keeps on walking. Never turning back. There’s no way Monokuma will let her stay happy and trusting. Rantaro hadn’t been wrong the other day when he said Monokuma specifically targeted Kaede. She might not be the most interesting person – a little predictable – but she isn’t the worst of the bunch here. And Monokuma is going to crush her hopes of them all getting out of here.

With Kaede somewhere far behind him, he makes his way into the dining hall alone. Looking around the room, he tries to find a nice empty seat for himself until his eyes stop on one in particular. Before anyone can objects, he hops onto the free chair beside Keebo and reaches over him to grab a rice ball from the Miu’s plate.

“Oi! You little arsehole! Give that back!” Keebo tries to reach out and grab it back from Kokichi but he swiftly stuffs it into his mouth. He hadn’t thought he was hungry but the second it touches his tongue he can feel his stomach grumble. After he’s done with this he’s going to have to track down whoever made these…

“I’m doing you a favour, trust me. You could do with eating a little less.” Darting his hand over once again he snatches another one. As if Keebo wasn’t even there, she tries to shove past him to attack Kokichi to no avail. Yet again, it embarrassingly easy to avoid. 

“Even without Monokuma here I could still kill you y’know!”

“Huhhhhh? I thought we were friends?” He sobs as he nonchalantly dodges all of Miu’s attacks. A breeze brushes through his hair as he ducks underneath her hands and hides behind Keebo.

“As if!”

“Miu! Stop that now!” Keebo suddenly interjects, grabbing a hold of Miu’s hands to stop her in her tracks. With both her hands restrained all she can do scowl at the robot beside her. Despite claiming he has the strength of a senior citizen he seems to be restraining her pretty easily… That might be more telling of her though. Whatever that might mean. 

Finally, Miu lowers her hands down to her sides, her bottom lip sticking out pathetically. With her dealt with, Keebo suddenly rounds on him, “What are you even doing here?”

“Can’t I eat with my friends when I want to?” Despite his tears, both of them just glare at him with stone cold faces. And they call him the heartless one.

“We’re not friends.” But despite Keebo’s words, he doesn’t get up and move even as Kirumi comes around and places a plate of rice balls in front of him too. Neither of them make any move to sit elsewhere. Awwww, they must really love him.

“Gasp! But didn’t Kaede say we were all friends?” He sticks out his bottom lip as he carefully manoeuvres the plate of food out of Miu’s reach as she reaches towards it.

“Kokichi…”

“Am I wrong?” He smirks, his eyes darting over to the pianist on the opposite side of the room for a second. I mean, if they’re working with her logic, they should all be singing kumbaya right now. He’d thought Keebo was onboard with her tirade the other day.

“I’ll never be friends with you, fuckwit.” Miu crosses her arms and twists her chair away him. Pouty, pouty, pouty.

“Seconded, bitchlet.” He pops another race ball into his mouth, directly looking over at Miu as he does so.

“B-Bitchlet?”

“Besides, soon enough we’ll all never have to see each other, again right?” He blocks out Miu and turns to challenge Keebo instead, “I mean, mannnnnn. For a moment there I didn’t know what was going to happen! I’m glad it turned out like this!” He smiles innocently and brightly. Challenging anyone to disagree with him.

“Yeah…seriously.” Much to his surprise it’s Kaito that responds from the table over. The relief if painted across his face for everyone to see.

“Nyeh… I slept well last night. Also, I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth by myself.” Himiko mumbles with a strange smile on her face. Wayyyyy too much information there but…okay. It’s hard to believe she’s somehow the same age as them. Or that she’s in high school.

“You did all that with magic?! You’re so amazing Himiko!” Tenko screeches from beside Himiko with way more gusto than appropriate. Sometimes he can’t tell if she actually believes the magic spiel or if it’s just to appease Himiko in some way.

A light vibe seems to permeate the room. Everyone has put aside the everything else that happened to simply enjoy the moment. Sure, it’s a little weird how calm they suddenly are, but it’s better than them all trying to kill each other he supposes.

Well, not quite everyone is calm.

Just like the other day, Kaede is still screaming about them needing to try the tunnel or whatever other plan she has to get them all out of here. Screaming might not be exactly accurate but, close enough.

He’s also surprised to see that Rantaro, at the very least, also doesn’t think this is over. And judging by the looks from a handful of others, those two aren’t the only ones. Some of the people don’t just blindly believe the robot bear things.

However, almost some kind of curse (or maybe they all just jinxed it). They don’t even make it to the end of the conversation before none other than Monokuma himself appears. Or the latest upgrade of him or something. A new Monokuma from the ‘Monokuma making machine’ or whatever the Monokubs are calling it.

All at once, the good mood and hope that had been keeping everyone afloat vanishes into nothing. Everyone around him is dragged down into Monokuma’s own special brand of despair. One by one, their faces fall as if none of them had even considered the possibility.

But of course, things only get worse.

“Ahem! Now then, I’m pleased to announce an additional motive!” Monokuma’s sudden announcement snaps him to attention. _Another motive_ … He’d mentioned that the first murder wouldn’t need a trial but it almost feels like no other motive is really necessary. After their reactions before, it would only be a matter of time before someone acted. What’s the point of adding a whole other motive in now.

“Additional motive?” Kaede tries – and fails – to hold back her onslaught of fear.

“A time limit is now in effect! If a murder does not occur by nighttime, two days from now…then every student forced to participate in this killing game will die! Mauled to shreds by countless Monokumas from the rumoured Monokuma-making machine! So unless you wanna end up as pink smears, you might wanna take this game seriously! Ahhhh-hahahaha!” The gleefully, happy-go-lucky voice cackles through the dining hall. No one can do anything but stare.

Even for Monokuma, it seems like a bit too much. How are any of them supposed to come up with a plan. No matter how good he might be, there’s no way he can beat Monokuma in two days. Is that what he wants? To leave them all with no option other than to play along with this stupid game in order to survive.

“T-Time limit?” Gonta seems to whimper meekly. All the gusto and hope from yesterday, gone. Devoured by Monokuma. Not surprising but still...

None of them know what to say. All of them are trying to process the new predicament they’re in right now. The sudden change from just a few minutes before catching them all completely off guard.

Eventually the bears just vanish into nothing, leaving them alone with their thoughts about everything that has happened. And that’s when things descend into utter chaos.

“What are we going to do? Nighttime in two days…will be here in an instant.” Tsumugi’s face is white as a sheet, her hands clenched around the material of her skirt. Two days. That’s basically how long they’ve already been here. She’s not wrong…it’ll all be over in the blink of an eye.

“Th-There’s gotta be somethin’ we can do… I can’t die… The world needs my genius!” Tears well up in Miu’s eyes. Her bottom lip even quivers pathetically as she stares around at all of them pleadingly. Back to her spineless self then.

“I-I don’t wanna… I…don’t wanna die yet!” Kokichi does his best to mimic her, trembling as sweat beads on his forehead.

He doesn’t want to die. Not in the slightest. And certainly not for any of these people. Not if it’s just going to give Monokuma a win.

“You don’t need to worry. Atua will welcome you with open arms.” Once again, Angie steps forward with a light and jovial touch. Great. An eternity stuck in a heaven filled with nutjob cultists.

“…That’s after we die, right?” Himiko groans.

“W-We can’t panic about something like this. I’ll…do something about it.” No matter how hard he tries to stand up tall and confident, it’s impossible to hide the sweat beading on his forehead or the trembling in his voice.

Hmmmm, didn’t this idiot say he’d do something before – then he failed. Not even just once. This has happened two whole times and it’s never ended well for him. In a way he supposes the guy’s…confidence could be called impressive. Is it even confidence at this point?

“…Did you have a course of action in mind?” For once he actually agrees with Keebo.

“I’m…gonna start thinking of one right now!” Somehow even he seems to have lost confidence in himself.

“…Figures. I didn’t expect anything from you in the first place.” Maki turns away crossing her arms. As he looks around the room, it’s clear no one else is even going to try to jump to his defense. Definitely not a good look for Kaito.

“W-We gotta fight back, then…!” Gonta’s voice wobbles ever too slightly. Beneath his fighting stance and words, the foundation is shaking. Even Tenko who – as usual – looks ready to jump right into the fight too, is trembling beside him.

“Y-Yeah! If we strike them with some sneak attacks, we might have a chance at winning!”

“What kind of Aikido moves even involve sneak attacks…?” Tsumugi’s voice is surprisingly calm despite her still pale complexion. They’re totallyyyyy not getting side-tracked on the completely wrong thing.

“Come, everyone! Gonta use body, keep everyone safe!”

“You’re going to go against those machines barehanded? Isn’t that too reckless?” Ryoma takes charge. At least someone around here has a brain.

“B-But…we have to do it! If we don’t, we’ll die!” Tenko barely stammers out the words as her skin pales even further.

“Wait! We still have plenty of tie to calculate all possible options –” But before Keebo can even finish speaking, Kiyo has cut in with his creepy whispering voice.

“We’ve no time to be indecisive. We are being urged to make a decision… To die fighting… Or die from the time limit.” Even though he’s whispering, it’s like his voice is somehow commanding silence from everyone else. Drawing them in.

“Why do both choices involve us dying?!” Tsumugi grabs a hold of both of her arms like she’s trying to hold herself still. A poor attempt at restraining herself. 

“N-No way… Are we really gonna die? I don’t wanna die yet… I’m gonna survive! I’m gonna make it no matter what!” His hand clenches into a fist as he grits his teeth. Warm tears slip down his cheeks and splatter against the ground underfoot. Every word trembles as he squeezes it out like it’s going to be his last.

No matter what these idiots do, he’s not going down with them. It’s like they’ve all given up on trying to beat Monokuma at his own game. None of them even giving it a second thought. They’re all just stuck on the rails Monokuma has set up for them…

“N-No matter what…?” Everyone stays silent except for Kaede who’s watching him through narrowed eyes. Is it just him or is there more space between him and everyone else now? “Wait! You can’t do that, though! Even if you make a mistake, you can’t –”

“Then you’ll accept the blame?” Blinking away his tears at once, he stares her down. Throwing down the gauntlet.

If they all go by her way of thinking, then they’re just going to be ripped to pieces in two days. No one will win and everyone here is going to die. That is if Monokuma will even allow that in the first place.

“Huh?”

“Will you accept the blame if I die? I have people who’ll be sad if I die, y’know.” The lie falls off his tongue with ease. But even as it does, he can feel that dark pit in his chest rearing it’s head once again.

There’s no one back home waiting for him. Nothing to go back to. No way in hell is he going to give up and just live here but even if he does go home, what’s there? If he did die here, would anyone even miss him?

Once again, he prods at that darkened space of empty memories in his mind. The hazy mess surrounding his time with D.I.C.E. Since he’s the leader of the organisation at least one of them would have to miss him, right? Even if there’s no one at home waiting for him…

“U-Um… Well –” Kaede gulps and looks around at the others who are all hanging their heads. Not a single person will look at her or him. Who do they all have waiting for them?

“Nee-heehee…I’m lying. No one will be sad if I die. But I dunno if the same can be said for everyone else. Anyway…I’m gonna take off now.” He’s certain people like Kaede must have warm loving families waiting for them back home. Hell, even Keebo has the professor waiting for him. None of them can afford to get slaughtered because all of them just _decided_ to lay down and die.

“Take off? Where are you going, Kokichi?” Rantaro tries to step forward to stop him but he simply weaves past him as he moves towards the door. As Kokichi’s shoulder brushes Rantaro’s arm, the taller boy just stands still with a slight shake of his head.

“Oh, I don’t knooooow. Maybe I’ll go back to my room and just think things over. Alone.” He leans backwards as he walks away, cooing loudly to Rantaro’s back.

“A-Alone in your room? What do you mean by that? Are you invitin’ me to come kill you?” Miu’s voice yells out to him but he simply lets the dining hall door swing closed behind him to silence her. If only he could do that in all his conversations with her.

No one even bother following him out of the room as he leaves down the patio. There’s no sound of distant footsteps. No voices chasing after him. Honestly, he doesn’t think he can be bothered to deal with any of them right now anyway.

Despite what he said to Rantaro, he finds himself going out to a secluded part of the field, far from the pathway to simply lie down on the grass. With both hands behind his head to prop it up, he stares up at the sky well above him. At the clouds still drifting peacefully above. They’re so close and yet so far out of reach.

Monokuma’s words echo around in his brain. Everything he’d told them that breakfast still weighing heavy on him. As much as he’d like to think he could beat Monokuma in two days, it’s obviously not possible. Utterly unreasonable. But it’s not like that’s even going to be necessary. By the time two days are up someone will be dead and life will keep on ticking. There’s no real reason to even try to speed up the process. Might as well take it slow and enjoy what time he does have here.

No matter how much he racks his brain, none of it is really clicking into place. Like some pivotal information is still missing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he considers asking for Shuichi’s opinion of all of this. He might not trust the guy but as a detective he could have an interesting insight. Or maybe his weird thing for detectives is just clouding his thoughts.

The Monokubs had said the 'Monokuma making machine' was located here in the school...so either there's some hidden route in and out of this school, or whoever is controlling all this is already inside the cage. Either way, that has to mean something, right. 

As he lies there, grass tickles his skin softly. For the first time he almost feels like he’s free and outside the cage. Just for a second, he closes his eyes in an effort to pretend there’s no bars above him blocking the way.

“Kokichi!” Then Gonta’s voice snaps him right out of it.

And once again, he’s trapped inside the cage.

“Hey Gonta.” He holds one hand up out of the grass to signal over to Gonta. Instantly, he can hear the soft sound of footsteps skipping towards him. If he didn’t know what Gonta looked like he’d never be able to guess based on the light footsteps. Is that from growing up with wolves or whatever he said it was?

As he gets closer, Kokichi closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. The earthy, fresh air is surprisingly pleasant. And he always thought he was a city boy.

“What Kokichi doing here alone?” Gonta crouches down quietly next to Kokichi. Only opening his eye a crack, he looks over to study Gonta.

As he crouches there he looks as peaceful as ever. One with the nature around him. There’s something about the softness of his face as he sits so still, bathed in warm light… Seeing him there like that, there’s no way you could say he didn’t belong out in nature.

“Trying to get rest.” He lets a sigh reverberate through his body and closes his eyes once again.

“Oh I see.” Gonta hums quietly. “Can Gonta join Kokichi?”

“I suppose so.” He shrugs his shoulders awkwardly. Beside him, the grass rustles softly for a second and Gonta gets comfortable next to him, “You don’t have anything better to do?”

“People just arguing. Gonta not sure what Gonta can do to help. Gonta not smart boy, not good at these things.” He says that as if most of the people in the dining hall are any more useful. Although, he isn’t completely wrong. In this situation there isn’t much he could really do to help. Not unless he was planning a murder.

“I see. I’m sure there’s something useful you can do.” He keeps his eyes closed the entire time, not even turning his head towards Gonta.

“Tell Gonta if there’s something Gonta can do.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” He smirks, more to himself than anyone else. If everyone else overlooks Gonta then Kokichi will just have to find a way to make him useful.

Both of them just lay there in silence, not even looking at one another. They’re both completely transfixed on the sky above them. As they lay there, he can’t help but wonder what’s going through Gonta’s mind. What does he even think about in times like this?

“Where Kokichi go yesterday?” Kokichi turns his head to properly look at Gonta for the first time. In all honesty, he’d almost forgotten that he’d been with Gonta the day before. Had Gonta been waiting for him all day? Whoops…

“Hmmmm…places.” He merely shrugs his shoulders and looks away again. Sure, he could just tell Gonta but how would the other boy react. And if he tells Gonta, what are the chances it’ll get back to everyone else and light that argument up again.

“Places?”

“Yuppppp!”

“Okay…Gonta see…” The lingering unease hangs between them both but Gonta still stays quiet. Even so, he can feel the other boy’s eyes hovering over him. It’s like an itch that he just can’t quite reach.

“Did you end up making a ladder?” He clears his throat quietly as he speaks. There’s wasn’t exactly much that could be used to make a ladder, but who knows? If Gonta actually did it’d be a step in the right direction at least.

“Uhhh, Gonta try but Gonta no good at that either.” There’s goes that then. Well, what did he expect? But, even if they did make a ladder, the best it would do is let them see the other side of the wall. With that glass Gonta saw between the bars they’d never be able to escape that way anyway.

“Soooo, there are only two days left, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Whatcha gonna do with the final two days of your life?” The question slips out unprompted. It’d be a lie if he said he’d never considered it before. A life on a timer forces you to think about what is actually important. Unfortunately, everything he always thought of for those last days couldn’t exactly be done in here. A pathetic way to spend his last days.

“Gonta’s final two days…Not sure…There still lots Gonta wants to do in Gonta’s life.” His wistful tone is carried softly by the wind. Carried out of this place. Something older and wiser than the years Gonta has lived.

They’re both still so young. Heck, he isn’t even eighteen yet! And it’s even worse for Gonta. All that time Gonta spent in the forest, he missed out on all the fun of life. All the fun of Kokichi’s life at least. Now he’s just gonna die without ever getting to enjoy the world. Not if Kokichi has anything to say about it.

“What do you want to do?”

“Gonta still needs to become gentleman and show forest family! Gonta not want to die in two days.” That bright sparkling smile once again. Wayyyyy too bright.

“Hmmm…” In his mind he tries to imagine what that would look like. Gonta all dressed up like some kind of gentleman surrounded by wolves and other animals. Not exactly something you’d see most days. The first step would probably be getting Gonta some actual shoes for a change.

As silly as it sounds, it’s not all that different from Kokichi. Neither of them can really do what they want while they’re here.

“But Gonta not sure what Gonta can do. Monokuma not gonna let anyone leave here.” Slowly his whole demeanour sinks back into inky darkness. 

“What are you good at then?” Instantly he sits up so, for once, he’s towering above Gonta. Looking down on him. It’s easy enough to say what you can’t do, it's what you can do that matters. 

“Ummm…Gonta strong and Gonta good at looking after bugs and animals.” Not exactly the most useful but still. There are plenty of fighters here but he’d his money on Gonta every time. I mean, if anyone is gonna go up against Monokuma or the Exisals it’s gonna be Gonta.

“Then you’ll just have to fight, right?”


	5. World Above

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi and Gonta join forces with Rantaro to learn more about the killing game

He’s not really sure how they both ended up sitting cross legged on the floor of Gonta’s room. One thing lead to another and apparently now he’s here. He'd just been meaning to give Gonta some tips but somehow he'd been coerced into the boy's room. He really is going soft if he's allowing himself to sit in this locked room with someone he could never defend himself against. 

This is it. This is how he’s spending the last days alive, sat cross legged on the floor of Gonta’s room weaving a ladder out of random wood they found in the warehouse. Probably the furthest thing from what he’d want to be doing right now. Beggars can’t be choosers though, he supposes. Besides, as he keeps reminding himself, Monokuma will never let these last two days go by without someone dying.

“Kokichi, you okay?” Kokichi shakes his head, snapping himself out of his thoughts, “Kokichi was looking at wall funny.”

“Nee-heehee, just lost in thought.” He smiles brightly and looks back down at his hands.

The wood is sat in his lap, taunting him with how much they still have to do. Not to mention how his hands are glowing a burning pink. At this point it’s starting to feel like his hands are never going to catch a break. Between this and the ‘road to despair’ it’s like the world has it out for him. What on earth did he do to deserve this…? Actually, don't answer that. 

The worst part of it all is that all of this is basically useless. Even if they get up to the higher part of the wall, what’s it even going to do? There’s no way there’ll be a way out or clues or anything. But still, even knowing that, he looks back down at his shoddily weaved rung and gets back to work. He’s gotta do something to pass the time and it beats the road to despair. At least Gonta doesn’t make for bad company.

“Is Kokichi feeling okay?” Beside Gonta is a significantly longer ladder segment.

Earlier Gonta had said he wasn’t good at making ladders but clearly that was an outright lie. All his forest stuff or whatever clearly came in clutch here. He’d sat there patiently trying to teach Kokichi the best way to weave the ‘vines’ (string) to make a rough semi-stable ladder with what’s supposed to be ‘ease’. He’s really starting to think Gonta might be as much of a liar as he is.

The longer it goes on the more he feels like just lying down on the floor. At this point, why hasn’t he? No matter how much he tries, there’s no way he’d be able to match Gonta’s pace. Might as well just let him keep doing it on his own. Then again, if he just lies here he might end up going insane out of boredom.

“I’m bored!” He flops back so his head hits the floor and his legs can kick up into the air. “How much longer is this going to take?!”

“U-Uhhhh, Gonta not sure…still lots more to do.” That certainly isn’t a lie. What they’ve made wouldn’t even get halfway up the walled section of the cage. He can practically hear the clock on the wall whispering: _‘waste, waste, waste, waste’_.

“We might as well get everyone to go on each other shoulders to try and reach the top.” His mind drifts off trying to imagine how that would work out. Sure, it might lead to some broken bones and light crushing but it’d be more entertaining than this at the very least.

“That wouldn’t work! Everyone just get hurt.”

“Yeah, yeah. I knowwww.” He can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. This would be so easily solved if Keebo just had a jet pack or something. Maybe he should talk to Miu and see if she can make something for him that would actually make him useful for a change.

“I need to get some fresh air.” He jumps up from his position on the floor in one fluid motion, trying to work the feeling back into his legs. “I’ll come back with some bubble gum or drinks or something.”

“Gonta’s never had bubble gum before…” Gonta stays focused on the ladder in his hands, almost as if he's ashamed. 

“What?!” He yells out incredulously, causing Gonta to lose his hold on the rung he’d been working on. “How have you lived this long?” In all honesty, he's not surprised but that doesn't change the sentiment. 

“There no bubble gum in the forest.”

“What did you even eat?” His face contorts into a frown. “Nuhuh. No way are you dying without having bubble gum or doing fun things. What about chocolate? Or sweets? Or cake?” To this day, he still remembers the first time he had bubble gum. How different it had been to all the shitty, bland scraps he’d been eating his whole life. It’s like a whole new world. No way would he ever want to go back to how it was before.

“No, sorry.” You poor, poor boy. Good thing Kokichi is here now to fix all this.

“You stay right here. I’ll be back…soon.” He points a single stern finger towards his bushy haired…friend? Ally? Colleague? Ughhh…titles and labels are way too confusing.

Before Gonta can even start to wrap his head around anything, Kokichi hops over the ladder and slips out of the room. Just being out of the room seems to have injected more energy into him. Just about anything would be better than sitting aimlessly in that room without anything to do. The curse of boredom. 

His newfound energy carries him out of the dorms and right back into the school. Even though he sees people on his way, he doesn’t bother approaching them and none of them even look his way. No doubt everyone is stuck thinking about Monokuma's announcement earlier that day. On the ticking clock hovering menacingly over all of them.

As if his own mind is protesting against those thoughts, he finds himself thinking back to the past - something he tries to avoid at all costs. At least until he woke up here. After all, what's the point of thinking about things that have already passed?

Although his and Gonta’s situations where ultimately different, he can’t stop himself from drawing connections. He wonders how different the forest was to urban streets or rundown buildings. Of course, even though Gonta missed out on a lot of the world he still had a family, even if not in a conventional way. From what little Gonta has told him, it sounds like he had two families. In fact, his missed childhood doesn’t even seem to bother him. In a way he’s kind of jealous. Imagine that, him jealous of someone like Gonta. He could laugh right now, but he doesn't.

Trying to shake the thoughts out of his head, he opens the door to the school shop. There’s no point in focusing on the past now. The future is the way to go. It’s not like he’s ever been one to let himself get dragged down by old memories anyway.

It doesn’t take him long to find some sweets and shove them in his pockets. He’d grab more but there’s – unfortunately – limited space in his pockets. Besides, he hasn’t seemed to have found any money for the strange machine resting on the countertop. What’s even the point of it if no one can use it? So, with his pockets filled, he starts walking back towards the entrance of the school with a spring in his step. But, right as he is about to round the corner, a familiar mop of light green hair comes into view. And there, in his hands, is an unfamiliar black bag of cradled gently in his hand.

Curiously, he ducks back behind the corner before Rantaro can see him and leans against the wall. From there he can hear the soft gentle sound of Rantaro’s steps getting closer and closer. Then his figure appears around the corner, seemingly wrapped up in his own thoughts, completely unaware of Kokichi's presence. It's...strange to see him so unaware of his surroundings for a change. 

“What’s that there?” Kokichi watches Rantaro with one leg is propped up on the wall while the other supports his body.

Instantly Rantaro freezes, his hands gripping onto the bag he’d been holding even tighter. However, as soon as he realises it’s Kokichi, some of the tension seems to ebb away. Only some though. At least someone seems to still be wary considering the situation.

“This? Nothing – just some nail painting things. They’re Tsumugi’s but she left them here.” He lifts up the bag and opens it so Kokichi can see the array of different coloured polishes.

Why does he have her nail painting stuff anyway? Not a pairing he would have expected to see together. But where did she even get those? Is it from the warehouse or something? Maybe he should drop by the warehouse and try to look for some himself. It’s been a while since he painted his own nails.

“You paint nails? Are you any good?” He casually walks towards the other boy and peers into the bag curiously.

“Yeah, I like to think so. You want your nails done?”

“Hmm, why not. You better be good though since we’re not getting out of here any time soon.” He hums. It’ll be easier than having to do them himself. Besides, it might be a good chance to get to know Rantaro better.

“Come with me then.” Rantaro nods his head back down the corridor.

For a moment he thinks about Gonta waiting in the dorm room. Eh, he’ll be fine. As long as they don’t take long, Gonta probably won’t even notice.

“Ooh, are you gonna lead me to your room to murder me.” A smirk flickers over his face as he giggles. Despite the joking tone, he doesn’t trust Rantaro as far as he can throw him. He doesn’t intend to get murdered by Rantaro, no matter how pretty he might be.

“Of course not. If I took you to my room everyone would know I killed you.” Rantaro’s face stays utterly neutral. It’s almost scary. It only sparks more questions about what his talent is and why he’d want to hide it. Feeding the hungry curiosity that drew him to the green haired boy in the first place.

“You could just be stupid.” He shrugs his shoulders. There are enough dumb people here even if he doesn’t think that Rantaro is one of them.

“Do I look that stupid.”

“I dunno, haven’t decided yet.” But despite everything, he follows the boy down the corridor to one of the empty classroom. Maybe this is that curiosity kills the cat thing coming back to bite him. If Rantaro thinks he can kill him then he’s got another thing coming. It’s hard to kill someone if you can’t catch them.

Without waiting to be invited in, he walks right over to the one of the chairs and places his feet up on the table. Despite the feeling of Rantaro’s eye’s digging into the back of his skull, he keeps his feet exactly where they are, smiling happily to himself.

“Are you okay there?” Rantaro closes the door slowly and peacefully but somehow it still _feels_ like a slam. Barely holding himself back, huh? For someone generally so calm he must really care about this dumb table.

“Yuppppp.”

Rantaro doesn’t bother saying anything else as he walks over and drags a chair over to Kokichi. Ignoring Kokichi’s feet taking up most of the desk, he sets the bag down on the desk. Would Tsumugi care that they’re using her stuff like this? Too bad if she does. It's not like she'd even notice if some were gone in the first place.

“What colour do you want?” Rantaro looks over at him with a surprisingly sweet and innocent expression. At least more so than usual.

“Do you have purple?” He cocks his head to one side. Say whatever you want, he’s staying on brand. No matter what anyone else says, it’s the best colour – end of discussion.

“I think so…” With quiet, deft fingers, Rantaro flicks through the selection before grabbing onto a soft purple polish, “Yeah. Any other colours?”

“You choose.” Of all the people here, he feels like he can trust Rantaro to choose a fitting colour. It’s not like he has particularly strong opinions about any other colours anyway.

“Give me your hand.” Rantaro’s hand gently reaches out to hold Kokichi’s. It’s much softer than he’d been expecting. Instantly Kokichi freezes, holding his hand as still as humanely possible. The last thing he wants is for Rantaro to screw up and to have to walk around with dodgy nails for the next few days.

With nothing else to do, he decides the seize the moment. What better time to start trying to weasel some answers out of the mystery boy? “So, you really don’t know your talent then?”

“So, you really run an evil organisation of 10,000 members.” Rantaro doesn’t even look up at him utterly fixed on the nail painting. It’s remarkably clean. More well done than his nails have ever been before. Despite his firm grip on Kokichi’s hand, his hand is very gentle as he brushes. He can only imagine the amount of time it must have taken to learn such care. It certainly does fit with his 'pretty boy' persona. 

“Nee-heehee. Would I lie to you?”

“I don’t know, would I lie to you?” His hand stops still for the first time as he looks up, one eyebrow arched. The brush is still hovering right above the nail, almost touching it but not quite. 

“Oi, be careful there.” But Rantaro simply pulls Kokichi’s hand closer to him, lurching Kokichi forward in his seat. Bastard. With his free hand he tries to balance himself again with surprising success.

“Be quiet.” Rantaro rolls his eyes but there’s almost a smile there too. He’s grabbed a black nail paint now and has gotten to work.

“So why do you have Tsumugi’s stuff?” He sprawls his free arm around the back of the chair and leans back casually. Although he’s not directly looking at Rantaro, he’s still watching him out of the corner of his eyes.

“Tsumugi and I were doing Kaede’s nails and she stormed off and left this behind. I was just going to return them to her when you stopped me.” Now that’s a combination. Kaede’s pet dog wasn’t following them around then? Then again, if Rantaro really is the ultimate model or whatever he’d probably get along well with Tsumugi so maybe it isn’t so strange.

“Ohhhh, I _seeeeee_ …” He giggles and leans a little closer to Rantaro, “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Kaede, haven’t you?”

“Do you ever stop talking?”

“Why should I? Everyone loves my voice.” He shrugs, leaning his head backwards to stare at the smooth white ceiling. He doesn’t know why people don’t talk more. It fills the otherwise deafening silence at the very least.

“I’m sure they do.”

“We’re done now.” Rantaro finally lets go of his hand, both hands painted purple with thin black stripes across the nails. Curiously, he holds his hand up in the soft light to get a better look at them. Every stripe has been perfectly painted so you’d never be able to tell it was painted free hand. He’d be lying if he said his nails ever looked better.

“It’ll do for now.”

“Sure.” Rantaro smiles sweetly as he puts the nail polishes back.

“Give me your hand then.” He holds out his hand expectantly towards Rantaro. Despite the clear implication, Rantaro just sits there frowning at him. And he thought Rantaro was smarter than that.

“Me?”

“Why not?”

“Your nails are still drying and can you even paint nails?” Who does Rantaro think he is?! Of course, he can still paint his nails like this. How else would he be able to paint his own nails? Seems he wasn’t far off when he said Rantaro was an idiot after all.

“Nee-heeheee, you don’t trust me?” He finally takes his feet off of the table so he can reach into the bag of nail polishes. Hmmmm, what colours? His hands hover over the colours, searching for something fitting. Eventually he reaches down to pick up light and dark green colours. Avocado colours for the avocado boy.

“No, I don’t.”

“Don’t be a big baby, it’ll be fine as long as you sit still.” Kokichi reaches down and grabs a hold of Rantaro’s soft hands. They must have been manicured or something. No ones hands are this nice. At least no one he knows. Just another point towards model.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Rantaro tries to lean back but Kokichi just about manages to keep him in place. If Rantaro really tried he could definitely break free, but he stops still anyway. He just sits there, awkwardly holding his hands in place so Kokichi can get to work.

“Shhh, they might as well call me the ultimate nail artist, y’know.” He grins manically, readying his nail polish for his assault.

“I’m sure, that’s not a lie.”

“I’m offended.” He gasps. Fully confident in his skills, he doesn’t bother working cautiously or slowly, using sweeping strokes of the brush. With every motion, he can feel Rantaro’s hand tensing. However, by the time he’s finished painting one of the hand pale green, the other boy seems to have stopped twitching at least a little.

“How did you get good at painting nails?” Despite how he’d chastised Kokichi, he’s the one who actually breaks the silence. See he can be quiet when he wants to be. Now look who’s talking.

“I like painting my own nails. What about you?” He even looks away as he keeps working on the nails. All the tension Rantaro had had earlier is slowly coming back. No matter the slight fear ebbing into his eyes, Kokichi doesn’t bother looking down.

“I have a lot of sisters who liked me painting their nails.” Something about the way he says it almost feels sad. Most people would be sad he supposes. Now they’re trapped in here, the chances he’s going to see them again is quickly dwindling.

“Awww, doting Rantaro Oniisan.” He watches as Rantaro's breathing hitches. If he didn't know any better he'd say it looked like he was on the verge of tears. 

“The experience makes it easier to deal with people like you.” Rantaro smiles softly although it's not fooling anyone. Despite Kokichi’s attempts to dodge out of the way, Rantaro gently pats his head. Puffing his cheeks he glares over at the other boy.

“They must be really missing you, huh.” He reaches a hand up and knocks aside Rantaro. Without any further protest, he puts his hand back down at his side.

“Yeah…I’m sure they are.” That sweet, quiet smile once again. Every time he thinks he’s understanding Rantaro a little more…

“Hey, y’know, you should come with me back to the dorms.” He says as he finally lowers his legs from the desk. Gonta would probably be more than happy to have the company.

“The dorms? Are you trying to kill me now?” As usual, there’s the same soft look on his face. The casual almost smirk. That strange mask of his. A calm distance as if he’s somehow not trapped here in this place with them.

“Whattttt?! How dare you even ask?! I’m offended!”

“Sure, sure… Why do you want me to come with you?” For some reason he waves his hands, like he’s trying to calm down an animal or a crying child. Appeasing him if nothing more.

“Hmmm…I’m bored and it could be fun.” Any distraction from the tedious work waiting back in Gonta’s dorm. An extra pair of hands would even help to lessen what he has to do.

“Well, if it’s the dorms then I guess I can come. I was planning on going that way anyway to give Tsumugi her stuff back.” In truth, he kinda hadn’t expected Rantaro to actually say yes. Does this mean he actually does trust Kokichi? Or is it just that Rantaro thinks he could take Kokichi down with ease? Let’s be honest here, Rantaro might not be particularly muscular compared to some of the other people here but he’s not delusional enough to think he’d be any match for Rantaro in a straight fight.

“Nee-heehee, good. Let’s go then.” Conscious of his nails, he grabs onto Rantaro’s hand and pulls him up off of the chair with surprising ease. He's not as heavy as he looks, or maybe Kokichi underestimated his own strength.

“Kokichi!” Rantaro half-heartedly tries to pull his hand out of Kokichi’s grip as Kokichi drags him along. And yet his hand falls short resignedly. Awww is Kokichi rubbing off on him. How sweet.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun, I’m sure.” Their hands are still linked together as Kokichi leads them out of the school towards the dormitories. Dragging Rantaro along like an overexcited kid. And yet, Rantaro sticks close. So close they might as well be walking side by side.

“Somehow I doubt that.” Kokichi might have just imagined it, but he could swear that, just for a second, Rantaro’s hand squeezes his a little tighter. But then, just as quickly as he felt it, it’s gone and all he’s left with is that ever-present sigh.

“Nee-heehee.” Without drawing attention to himself, he turns his head ever so slightly to look up at Rantaro. And as he does, he notices the undeniable sadness marring his face. Dear god, it better not be tragic backstory time.

“Kokichi…what are you planning?” And then even that is gone.

“Why would I be planning anything?”

Before Rantaro can answer, he reaches out and smashes the doorbell over and over. Tsumugi better be in here. Even from outside the room the incessant, shrill sound of the doorbell screeching from inside the room is like knives stabbing into his skull.

It’s a relief when the door finally swings open revealing a fuming Tsumugi holding her head with one hand. She stares daggers into him as he stands stock still, finger still hovering above the doorbell.

“Heyyyyy Tsumugi!” But his grin only seems to wind Tsumugi up even further. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. What’s got her pants in a twist?

“Kokichi? Rantaro? What are you doing here?” For some reason she’s even glaring at Rantaro. She might even be glaring at him more than she is at Kokichi.

“I’m babysitting.” Rantaro nudges Kokichi with his elbow. It’s far too light to even slightly hurt him but it’s just about enough to make him stumble and move away from the button.

“Ow!” He screams out dramatically and holds his side as if he's been shot. 

“And I came to bring these back to you.” Rantaro completely ignores him as he holds out the nail polish bag towards Tsumugi, “We borrowed them to do our own nails, I hope that’s okay.”

“Oh, I see. Thank you.” With those curt words she snatches the bag out of Rantaro’s hands. Y’know what, he’s starting to think Tsumugi might be annoyed because of something other than the doorbell. What happened when they were doing Kaede’s nails earlier? Rantaro did say Tsumugi stormed off, but he can't imagine Kaede or Rantaro being the type to piss off Tsumugi.

Then without another word she starts to close the door on them. “You’re welcome.” Rantaro tries to call out to her but she just keeps on closing the door. Both of them just stand there as the sound of the slammed door echoes around them.

“Byeeeeee!” He waves casually, a shit eating grin on his face, “What did you do to her Rantaro?”

“No idea. She’s been like that all day.” Rantaro has already turned and walked away from Tsumugi’s door without a second thought. He doesn't even looks like he cares.

“Whatev.” He puts both arms behind his head and struts off towards Gonta’s room. It’s not like standing there is going to answer any questions about Tsumugi. And even if it did, he really couldn’t care any less right now. Whatever happened between Tsumugi and Rantaro has anything to do with him, as long as no one is dead anyway.

Although his steps are more hesitant than before he can hear Rantaro following a little behind him. But the close they get to Gonta’s room, the slower Rantaro’s steps get. 

“Why are we going into Gonta’s dorm room?”

“I didn’t say we were going to my dorm.” He casually reaches down and twists the knob to slam the door open. As the door hits the wall, he hears Gonta suddenly jump up to face him and Rantaro.

“I suppose not.” Without a second look, Rantaro calmly moves past Kokichi into Gonta’s room. Age before beauty as they say.

“Kokichi, you back! Rantaro here too?” Gonta runs towards them, beaming gleefully. “Rantaro here to help us?!” He doesn't think he'd ever seen Gonta so excited. It's kinda cute. 

“Yeah, is that okay?” For a second, Rantaro stops still as if he’s waiting for Gonta’s consent for some reason. The quick nod from Gonta must be enough as he walks right past Gonta and sits cross legged on the floor beside the ladder. With gentle hands he reaches down and lightly picks up the ladder to examine it closer.

“Of course! More friends the better!” Both Gonta and Rantaro completely ignore him to sit together on the floor. At least someone seems happy to just sit here and work on the ladder.

“What are you making here then? Kokichi didn’t tell me anything.” As much as Kokichi tries to avoid Rantaro’s gaze, he can still feel Rantaro’s eyes on him. Bastard.

“Uhhhh, well…Kokichi wants to make ladder to try and see what on other side of the wall. Gonta and Kokichi try using grappling hook but that not work either.”

“A ladder, huh. That could work.” Rantaro hums quietly and looks up at the ceiling, deep in thought. Of course it could work, it’s Kokichi’s idea after all.

“Yes! Kokichi had good idea so Gonta helping.” Once again, Gonta’s face lights up. Stupidly blinding.

Not waiting for Kokichi, Gonta reaches over and starts pointing at the ladder. As patient and calm as ever, he starts teaching Rantaro how to weave the string to make the rungs as tough as possible. The entire time Rantaro sits there still as a statue hanging off of every word. His hands work more deftly than Kokichi could ever hope to and, although he’s no where near as fast as Gonta, even more deftly than Gonta does. Like it’s somehow second nature.

Familiar with rope and knots, huh? Maybe the real reason he hid his talent was because he was embarrassed about it…

With those two busy together, Kokichi closes the door and stands to one side. Watching them both closely, he reaches into his pocket and pops a piece of bubble gum into his mouth. Bringing Rantaro here was definitely the right choice. This is much better than having to sit there and work his hands raw. Plus, he can keep an eye Rantaro as they sit here. Anything to even get a shred more information.

“I didn’t realise you two were such good friends.” That damned smirk snaps Kokichi out of his own thoughts. Even when he tries to look away from Rantaro, those eye burn into the back of his skull. It’s not like they’re even proper friends or anything.

“Gonta –”

“Here, try this.” Kokichi cuts off Gonta before he can continue, throwing a piece of gum his way. Caught off guard, Gonta has to try and fumble around to catch the small piece of gum. He only just manages to catch it before it goes soaring over his head.

“Thank you, Kokichi.” Gonta cradles it in his hand as if it’s some mystical object from another world. Instead of eating it he just stares at it.

“Go on then.” His sigh reverberates through his body. He has half a mind to go right over there and unwrap it himself. It’s almost painfully slow.

“Oh, right. Yes.” A blush spreads across his cheeks as he _finally_ unwraps the small piece and pops it into his mouth, “Very sweet!” His voice is muffled as he chews but the widening of his eyes is clearly visible.

“You like it?” Kokichi giggles, unable to keep a smile off of his face. How can someone like Gonta actually look that cute? If they ever do get out of here he should take Gonta out on the town to make up for all the time he lost. Someone needs to open his eyes to the wonders of the world. Plus, he could be helpful with D.I.C.E's pranks.

“Yes!”

“Is this the first time you’ve had bubble gum?” Rantaro cocks his head to one side. Is that genuine surprise there? His hands fall still, leaving the ladder sitting in his lap. Nee-heehee, who’s being unproductive now.

“Yeah, no bubble gum in the forest.”

“Here.” Before Rantaro can turn around, Kokichi launches another piece of bubble gum towards him. And yet, unlike Gonta, he holds hand up and catches the piece without even turning around to look at it approaching. “Wow.”

“So, if you two are friends, does he help you with the road to despair?” Rantaro finally turns around with the bubble gum in hand. His eyes might as well be challenging him.

So, he saw that then. Every word that comes out of his mouth seems to give him a different idea about the boy’s possible talent. His mind runs wild imagining him as some kind of secret agent or spy. Or he could just have made a random guess. A shot in the dark. Regardless, it doesn’t really matter.

“Whattttt? Unlike a certain blonde haired piano player, I know when to deal with stuff on my own.” He huffs.

Sure, he might not actually have known but it doesn’t make any difference to Kokichi if he does know. And if Rantaro really thinks that Kokichi would ever bring someone with him to tackle the road to despair then he’s out of his mind. As long as Rantaro doesn’t go putting idea’s in Kaede’s head again, he’s fine. Kokichi might be fine with throwing himself at this wall until he breaks through but the other’s are…how can he say it nicely…? They’re utterly pathetic and would mentally break before they even got close.

“What he talking about, Kokichi?” Gonta’s eyes narrow as he sets down the ladder. Part of him had kinda forgotten that Gonta was even in the room.

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Kokichi waves him off casually with one hand. No offense to Gonta but he doesn’t really want to deal with all that right now. This is between him and Rantaro.

“So you’re just doing it alone.”

“Of course, no way would I ever want to put everyone through that torture. I’ll bear the burden so they don’t have to.” As usual, he plays up the tears. Everyone loves a good emotional cry right. Sometimes crocodile tears can be just as good at masking something as they can be a giveaway.

“Wh –”

“That’s a lie. Why would I trust any of you guys to go down there with me?” He doesn’t even bother waiting to hear Rantaro’s response. Whatever it was, it was probably _suppppper_ boring anyway. No matter what he says, he’s doing this his way – not Kaede’s way or Rantaro’s way or god forbid Kaito’s way.

“Kokichi going down manhole alone?” Gonta leans forward, every muscle in his face seemingly tensed. Thanks a lot Rantaro. Now he has to deal with _this_.

“Ignore him, Gonta. Why would I go down there alone? I already told everyone that I hated it down there.” But no matter how hard he tries, the tension doesn’t seem to drain from Gonta’s face. He chooses now of all times to actually be suspicious of what Kokichi’s saying.

“U-Uh…Gonta suppose so.” Although he returns to how he’s been seated before, his hands don’t pick up the ladder again.

“You want me to teach you how to blow bubbles.” It might be a piss poor way off changing the topic but there’s not really many other options. And, as bad as it is, it seems to shake the thought at least slightly from Gonta’s head.

“Blow bubbles?” His eyes shine like a child's.

“Yeah, it's easy, see.” Rantaro explains softly at Gonta's side. 

“Like this?” Gonta spits the gum across the room and flushes bright red. Unable to stop himself, Kokichi bends over laughing. It's a sorry sight but for a moment all the thoughts of this place are gone. 

Even Rantaro laughs beside him, “Not quite. Like this.”

They all simply sit there together, laughing quietly as they teach Gonta how to blow bubbles. Amongst all the chaos and paranoia, it's a surprisingly peaceful scene. Certainly not one he ever imagined when they first arrived here. But he does his best not to ruin the moment. To make the most of the peace because who knows if they'll ever get the chance to again. Sure, none of them are working or being productive but it's worth it to see the soft, calm look on Rantaro's face. Or to see the unbridled excitement and enthusiasm on Gonta's. 

But of course, eventually the moment has to end. With Gonta happily blowing bubbles and laughs on their lips, they eventually turns back to the ladder, assessing the work that still needs to be done.

“Ladder coming along good. Rantaro very good at making it.” Gonta holds up the ladder proudly for Kokichi to see. He's more alive than he's ever looked before. 

“Ohhhh, reallyyyy?!” But as he looks over to Rantaro he finds the boy actually isn’t looking at him for once. Unlike Gonta, he’s gone right back to weaving as if they’d never been talking in the first place. 

“Gonta is a good teacher.” Rantaro flashes Gonta one of those fluffy innocent smiles as he admires his own handy work. Talk about a teacher’s pet. “I don’t know if it’ll reach the wall though…”

“We checked when we were getting the materials from the warehouse earlier. It’ll reach.” It had been more of a hassle than he’d expected to try and get a ladder that would actually be a useful height. Since it’s so tall they decided to add a few inches onto the height they estimated from their check.

“That’s good. Are you not going to come and help?” Nuhuh, Rantaro isn’t roping him back into being productive. God knows he’ll die of boredom before anything gets done.

“You’re doing fine by yourself. Why would you even need me?” In just a short time, they’ve made much more progress than Kokichi ever did. Kokichi already served his time and now he’s finally free.

“Go faster if Kokichi helping.”

“Hmmmm…” He hums ‘deep in thought’ as he rubs his chin, “No.” A logical conclusion to come to as far as he’s concerned.

“Kokichi.” The stern voice almost catches him by surprise. Is this his big brother mode? He always wondered what it would be like to have a big brother. The death stare is a nice little bonus.

“Fine fine.” Rantaro keeps that chilling stare on him the entire way as he drag his feet along the carpet, eyes rolled backwards dramatically. Every steps feels like a chore.

Yet despite the situation, Gonta is still sitting there cheerfully, patting the spot beside him like an overexcited school kid. He’s starting to wish Monokuma didn’t decide on giving them two days before killing them all.

Drained of energy, he flops onto the floor beside Gonta and reluctantly picks up the ladder once again. They might be able to twist his arm to make him sit here but they’re not going to make him work efficiently. With a slight smirk on his face, he makes every hand movement as slow as humanely possible. Serves them right.

“Do you need some help?” With that smug smile, he gets up and walks over to Kokichi’s side to sandwich Kokichi between Gonta and him. Blocking off all possible escapes. Then, like a patronising teacher, he reaches over to try and move Kokichi’s hands for him.

“Hey!” He swipes at Rantaro’s hands until he finally moves them back slightly, “Get off, I can do it on my own.” Suddenly he wishes he’d never found out what having a big brother was like. For the first time he might actually be glad he never had to deal with family. Clearly more hassle than they’re worth.

“Okay, okay.” He might as well be cooing with that look he shoots Kokichi. Clearly he's the Ultimate Pain In My Ass.

With nowhere else to go, he’s stuck sat there working alongside the two of them. Time seems to stop just to spite him as they toil away, Rantaro and Gonta’s meaningless small talk only interrupted by Kokichi’s sighs and groans. Not that either of them even seem to care. They’re both heartless arseholes incapable of empathy.

But, despite him dragging his feet the entire time, they do eventually get the ladder finished. Just by looking at it he can’t tell how sturdy it will be but he’ll just have to trust Gonta that it’ll hold. And make sure he goes up before Gonta.

“Oh thank god that’s over!” He falls backwards onto the floor with his arms and legs spread out as far as possible. After all that sitting down his legs have started to slowly die on him. In all his life he’s never felt happier to go outside. Okay, that might be a lie.

“Now we need to get it outside in one piece…” Rantaro is still rubbing his chin, his eyes focused on something in the distance. Jeez, how is he the only one taking the time to be happy right now. Live in the moment for a change.

“Gonta think that hard.”

“Whateverrrr! Let’s just be happy it’s finally done!” From his comfy spot on the floor he can’t properly see their faces but he can picture the exact looks on their faces right now. The sombre tension in Gonta’s face and the ever present calm distance on Rantaro’s. How boring.

“It’ll be fine when we out of the dormitories. We can do it.” Gonta relaxes almost instantly upon hearing Rantaro speak with that oh so inspiring thumbs up. Revolutionary.

“Then let’s get going!” He jumps up into the air enthusiastically. They’ll figure it out as they go along. How hard can it be?

Turns out, very hard. Getting it out of the door is easy enough but, without the ability to bend it they can move it to the stairs down to the first floor. He’s starting to get the feeling that maybe they should have assembled the ladder outside instead of in here. Who would’ve known?

“Someone go stand at bottom and catch ladder!” Gonta suddenly stands up straight filled with inspiration. Honestly, it’s not a bad idea. Better than anything Rantaro and Kokichi were coming up with at the very least.

“It could work…” Rantaro hums and nods his head encouragingly.

“I’ll go down and catch it!”

“You?”

“Yup! I’m actually pretty strong y’know.” Yeah, it might be a lie but how heavy can a ladder like that even be. Gonta and Rantaro will be taking most of the weight by feeding it down to him. It’s more fun this way anyway.

Without much resistance from Rantaro or Gonta, he finds himself ready on the first floor. Both of them are up above, carefully holding up the ladder so it doesn’t snap and break as they push it down and, y’know, so it doesn’t fall and crush Kokichi.

“It coming down now!” Gonta calls out, voice laced with worry. What a sweetie.

Holding his hands up, he gets ready to receive the ladder which is being lowered down at a snails pace. Couldn’t they go any faster. As he stands there with his hands up like an idiot he can’t help but wonder what this would look like if anyone else came wandering in right now. Now that would be a sight.

But as more and more of the ladder is lowered down, he finds himself put under more and more weight. Not to mention the awkward angle keeps pushing him further and further back. Like a not fun limbo. Then again, is the limbo ever fun?

He’s almost about to buckle under the awkward weight of the structure when another pair of hands appear to help lift up the middle of the ladder. “Here. Let me.” Rantaro hoists the middle of the ladder over one shoulder, leaving Kokichi with the whole rear end. Together they support it as Gonta slowly drops the last bit and runs down to join them.

“Rantaro and Kokichi okay?”

“Course.” Kokichi holds his head up high. It might have been heavier than he’d been expecting but they got through it. And best of all, no one walked in and saw him.

“Here, let Gonta.” With that Gonta politely reaches over and takes the end from Kokichi. As he does so he copies Rantaro and rests it on his shoulder so the ladder stretches put in a diagonal line between him and Rantaro.

“Off we go then.”

“You’re not going to help?” Rantaro gives him the brother look again. He thinks he'd prefer a scowl really. 

“You two are doing fine, besides if I tried to hold the middle –” He steps towards the middle of the ladder and jumps up in a weak attempt to try and reach the ladder. However with both Gonta and Rantaro supporting both ends, its out of his reach. “– see. What a shame…”

“I can take the –” Rantaro opens his mouth to speak but Kokichi turns his back on the green haired boy and begins making his way out of the dormitory.

“So, let’s go.”

“Lets!” At once Gonta marches forward to follow Kokichi. As he moves, he drags Rantaro behind him and all three of them march off together. The three Musketeers off to defeat Monokuma. Or just to start to piece together the mystery of the school. That sounds less cool though.

With those two bringing up the rear, Kokichi leads them out towards the clearing him and Gonta had scouted out before. He can feel the snacks and camera still in his pocket as he marches along. If all goes to plan he should be able to get a picture of the outside of the cage to take back to his room and study. There’s no way of knowing how helpful it will be but a boy can hope.

None of them speak as they walk. A dull, boring, serious walk so different to how things had been earlier. There aren’t even any other students around. It’s like everyone has vanished. Who knows how many of them are plotting murder as they speak. And, as much as he hates to admit it, there’s a small, dark, cowardly part of him that hopes someone does just so he doesn’t have to get killed with the rest of them at the end of the time limit.

Shaking those thoughts from his mind, he pulls out the camera and turns to face the others without warning, “Say cheese!” He exclaims without any warning, snapping Gonta and Rantaro to attention.

Looking through the camera, he tries to capture both of them in the shot. Since the ladder is so long it’s harder than he’d expected but he just about manages it. The soft light flowing through leaves frames both Rantaro and Gonta surprisingly nicely for a disposable camera.

Growing up he’d always wanted to have a camera of his own and, while this is still pretty shitty as far as things are concerned it’s better than nothing. Something about the captured moment is appealing in a strange way. Did he ever get to take pictures of the D.I.C.E members like this?

“Cheese!” Gonta smiles as brightly as ever as the shutter clicks. And then the bright flash from the camera makes both of them blink like idiots and the cute moment is ruined. So the flash does work then, good to know.

“Where did you even get a camera?” Rantaro blinks furiously and almost lets go of the ladder to rub his eyes.

“From the warehouse, where else?” Just one look in there is enough to know that it’s designed for murder. There’s so much random stuff on all the shelves that whatever any possible killer needs they’ll be able to find it. All just another part of the plan.

“Kokichi show Gonta picture?”

“Later, I can’t develop the pictures till later.” Besides, might as well make the most of it and fill up the camera before developing any pictures. If he survives long enough to. 

“Okay! Later then!”

“Are we almost there Kokichi?” Rantaro sighs and readjusts the ladder on his shoulder. 

“Yeah yeah. Keep your pants on. It’s just up ahead.” Leaving the other two behind with the ladder, he begins to skip ahead towards the sorta clearing thing. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he watches them slowly approach him. What’s taking them _so_ long? And even when they finally catch up to him they take forever adjusting the ladder so it’s as well supported as possible.

“Nee-heehee. Lemme go up first.” He skips forward, bouncing on the balls of his feet. After all this effort there better be something worth it up there. But no matter how many times he repeats that in his head, he doesn’t believe it for one second. Never-the-less he holds his head high.

“Sure.” With a simple shrug, Rantaro moves away from the base of the ladder leaving it open and free for Kokichi.

One hand grips onto the rough, rustic rung of the ladder. Just standing there he can feel the sweat building up on his palms. He thought he was better at lying than this. He always knew his reckless and impulsive nature was gonna come back to bite him in the ass. This is the moment of truth. If Gonta or Rantaro fucked this up he’s going to really make them pay.

Welp, here goes nothing.

Supressing the unwanted nervous feeling, he takes the first decisive step up the ladder. And…nothing happens. The ladder stays sturdy. He doesn’t fall through or drop down. He just stands there. Well, that was very anticlimactic. Almost disappointed, he climbs up the ladder towards the top of the wall. Although the ladder wobbles and bends ever so slightly as he gets higher, every step is somehow just as disappointing for no logical reason. At least all the work paid off.

Bit by bit, the top of the ladder inches closer. He can see the smooth ridge approaching slowly and reaches up a single hand towards it, pulling himself up onto the platform. Only to see…

“What’s up there?” Rantaro has stepped closer, craning his neck up.

“Come on up.” He shouts down to them, staring out through the glass barrier at the world lying beyond.

Just like from the ground, he can see skyscrapers reaching upwards as if stretching towards the sky. The sun in the sky shimmers off of their perfect pristine glass windows. Other smaller buildings sit cosily between the skyscrapers filling out the city beyond into a thick urban maze. Perfect, well kept roads weave throughout and creep towards the cage like veins in the ground.

It’s normal.

Just a normal everyday city sitting on the outskirt of this stupid death game.

There’s no dystopia. No ruins. No angry mobs. Hell, it’s not even guarded in anyway.

For some reason it just feels a little off. Like a painting that’s angled ever so slightly off. Or an empty school yard in the middle of the weekday. As if there’s something wrong right underneath the surface.

Only half conscious of what he’s doing, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the disposable camera. Through the small viewer he tries to capture the strangeness of the situation. He’ll just have to see how the photo’s come out later though. He’s so focused that he doesn’t even notice Rantaro stepping up from the ladder.

“A city?” Rantaro hisses through gritted teeth. The clenched fist pressed tightly to his side speaks volumes.

“Yup. Nothing wrong here as far as I can tell.” None of this feels right in the slightest. He already knew whatever was happening here didn’t make sense but somehow this only makes it worse.

“Guys?! What up there?! Gonta don’t think it safe for Gonta to go up ladder.”

“There’s a city here. A normal city.” Rantaro turns his back on the scenery laid out before them and calls down towards the surprisingly small figure of Gonta way down below.

“Why? If city here why no one come rescue us?” He didn’t think he’d be saying this but, Gonta’s right. Despite the city being in perfect condition, there’s no one else around. No people visible on the streets or in the buildings. And if they’re really in the middle of a city, someone, anyone, would have come to investigate.

What is happening here?

“Welp, that was useless. Too bad.” Clearing his throat loudly, he whips around and starts moving back down the ladder. After all that work, they’re just left with more frustrating questions. So typical. At this point he wouldn’t be surprised if all of this is part of Monokuma’s plans.

As his feet touch down on the ground Gonta comes over to him as starts hounding him with annoying questions. But he can still see Rantaro stood up above. No matter how long Kokichi stands there, Rantaro stays frozen. Was there really _that_ much to see up there?

“Heyyyyyyy, you comin'?” He ignores Gonta to look up at the shrouded figure of the other boy, “What are you even looking at?”

“Nothing, nothing. It’s fine.” Finally Rantaro turns around, eyes closed with a smile on his face. “I’ll come down now.”

“Ughhh, he’s such a slow coach.” Kokichi cups a hand around his mouth to not-so-subtly whisper to Gonta

“That not nice Kokichi!” Ughhhh, the fun police are here apparently. What was he expecting when he’s talking to Gonta of all people though?

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” He waves nonchalantly and goes back to watching Rantaro clamber back down towards them. When he reaches the ground he brushes himself off and stands up straight as ever.

“Soooo what are we gonna do about this ladder?” He places his hands behind his head with his eyes closed. They might have spent a lot of time working on it but no way is he keeping that in his room until they find another use for it. And he’s sure neither of them want it around either.

“The ladder?” Rantaro frowns with his head tilted a little.

“Yes, must do something with ladder now. Gonta not really think there much other use for ladder now.” Gonta hums with more thought than normal. At least someone is on board.

“That’s probably right…”

“I’ll get an axe!” Kokichi lights up with excitement. When he’d been in the warehouse before he’d noticed axes which would be perfect for right now. If they’re getting rid of the ladder, might as well have some fun with it. He’s always wanted to take an axe to something and what better time to do so?

“An axe?!” Gonta flinches back, wide eyed. What do they think he’s going to do? Murder someone with an axe he literally just mentioned in front of two people?

“To break up the ladder, duhhhh!” As if that wasn’t obvious already. Sure, they _could_ just untie the string and pull apart all the small pieces but where’s the fun in that.

“Is that necessary?” Rantaro arches an eyebrow. He didn’t say no though. As long as it isn’t a no, he’ll count it as a win. And even if he does say no, that’s not going to stop him.

“Completely one hundred percent necessary…” Rantaro gives him the fabled: ‘I’m disappointed eyes’, “…for my enjoyment.”

“Well, if Kokichi want then we can get axe.” At least he can trust that Gonta will have his back, even if he doesn’t really mean to.

“Sure, if you really want to.” Rantaro gives out an exasperated sigh, “But I’m staying here. I want to look again one last time before we break up the ladder.”

“Okie dokie.” He shrugs his shoulders. As much as he’d like to know what exactly Rantaro is so interested in, staying here isn’t really going to help. If Rantaro wanted to confide in him he’d have done it already. “C’mon then Gonta.”

“Gonta staying too. Gonta help Rantaro.” Seems like he spoke too soon. Not that Kokichi really minds. He can easily run over to the warehouse on his own and it’s not like anyone would be dumb enough to try and kill him in a public place.

“Whatevs. You do you. I’ll be back soon.” They both wave him off as he turns to head back to the school. It feels like he’s been spending all his time going back and forth from the warehouse nowadays.

Hurrying, it doesn’t take him long to get up to the warehouse and find what he needs. As expected of Monokuma, the axes and other weapons aren’t exactly hard to reach. Wouldn’t want to keep his precious friends waiting any longer than necessary. All things considered, he’s doing pretty well for time. Putting those running skills to good use. But of course, it’s at that moment that it starts to unravel. As he throws open the entranceway door he runs out only immediately to slam into someone.

Stumbling backwards ever so slightly, its all he can do to keep the axe as far away from the person in question as possible. If at all possible he’d rather not have to deal with a dead body right now. Safely free from the threat of an accidental murder, he looks up at the dark figure still casting a shadow over him. Staring down at him from under that dub emo hat is the one, the only, the ultimate detective himself.

“Shuichi, fancy seeing you here!” He grins, leaning ever so slightly closer to the detective. He can’t help but notice that even though they’ve been stood there for a few seconds now, Shuichi is still hovering over him. They’re not super close but he’s close enough to be able to hear Shuichi’s shallow breathing.

“Kokichi? What are you doing?” Shuichi suddenly steps back as if he’d only just snapped into consciousness again.

“Going to chop up a dead body with this axe, duh.” Eyes sparkling brightly, he lifts the axe up and waves it around recklessly. “Wanna help?”

“U-Uh, no…What are you really doing, Kokichi?”

“I already told ya, didn’t I?” But Shuichi’s gaze doesn’t soften in the slightest, “Ughhhhh, boring. Just working on a project. Gotta make the most of these last two days, right.” Then for some reason – because god hates him – he flashes Shuichi a flirtatious wink.

Where did that even come from? Sure, he might be cute and a detective but this is basically the first conversation they have ever had. Wow, well done Kokichi. But, if nothing else, it does make Shuichi blush like an idiot. Aww, cute little blushy detective.

“What have you been doing with your final moments then?” Kokichi pushes on past the awkwardness. It’s only awkward if you make it awkward, right.

“W-Well, just doing…stuff. N-Nothing important.” The entire time he keeps his head tilted downwards to the floor. With it like that the brim of his cap completely covers his entire face from view. What few parts are visible are still covered in a bright red blush. He’d never taken detectives for being the shy type. From the few he’d met in the past they tended to be a bit more…strong willed.

Doesn’t make it any less cute though.

“Nothing important…huh? You been hanging out with Kaede by any chance?” At once Shuichi looks up, the blush back in full force. At this rate the poor boy might die from embarrassment. It's actually more fun to mess with him than Kaede. 

“We’re friends.” Not denying it then. It would be kind of hard to deny at this point – although she was doing her nails with Rantaro earlier. What have they been doing together though…?

“I bet you are.” He wiggles his eyebrows which only makes Shuichi lower his head once again.

“I-It’s not like that…” That face says otherwise.

“Welp, who am I to stop you two? Use protection though.” Shuichi seems to curl in on himself, “Someone could try to kill you at any time, y’know.”

“Goodbye, Kokichi.”

“Byeeeeeeee!” Side stepping through the small gap between Shuichi and the wall, he slips out of the school building. As he skips off, he turns his head slightly to see Shuichi still stood in front of the doorway. Is he glitching out or something?

Whatever Rantaro was trying to look at up above, he’s already finished by the time Kokichi arrives. Him and Gonta are sat on the floor in front of the ladder chatting cheerfully. Sunlight is slipping through the canopy to illuminate both of them in a soft, warm light. The perfect time for a picture but he keeps the camera in his pocket.

“Kokichi!” Gonta jumps up as Kokichi approaches.

“Here we go! One axe.” He casually swings the axe around. Unlike Shuichi, neither of them even seem to bat an eyelid to his antic.

“Time to break it up then.” Rantaro brushes off his trousers as he approaches them.

“Yup.” He walks right past the two of them and up to the ladder, “How hard can it be?”

With the two of them gathered around he starts chopping the wooden poles with all his might. It’s surprisingly satisfying – or maybe not so surprisingly. But despite it being his idea in the first place, he happily hands the axe over to Rantaro and Gonta as they all work together.

Working together, they exchange meaningless small talk to pass the time. As they take it in turns to break up the ladder, he finds himself pulling his camera out again and turning off the flash. Both don’t seem to notice as he snaps a few photo’s of them quietly working together. Snap shots of the quiet moments as Rantaro guides Gonta with the axe. Of them smiling under the waning sun.

By the time they’ve finished, he can see the edges of the sun sinking beneath the wall. The last shimmering beams dip over the edge creating a blinding light. Though the Monokubs announcement still hasn’t played they decide to head back to their rooms for the night, bodies tired and heads filled with questions.

All alone again, he hops up onto the armchair and hugs his legs close to his chest. Thoughts are racing through his mind at top speed. He’s not even sure where to begin putting everything he’s learnt together.

“Heyyyy! Monokuma?”


End file.
